BJP emerges winner in three wards of Mohali civic body, finishes as runner-up in 10 others

BJP, the newest entrant in the Municipal Corporation (MC) polls of Mohali, surprised everyone by emerging victorious in three of the 49 contested wards. What was even more surprising was the fact that the party finished as the runner-up in 10 wards, giving the Congress and other Independent candidates a run for their money. In Ward No 47, AAP candidate managed to win the contest by a single vote.

BJP’s showing in the MC polls showed the party gave a serious fight to its opponents in atleast 13 wards out of 50. A review of the election results indicates that the party did relatively well in nine wards from No 26 to 50, predominantly covering semi-urban areas, as compared to four wards from No 1 to 25 (urban areas). All the three wards where BJP emerged victorious belonged to the semi-urban category, including Sector 82 and Balongi.

Ward No 41 winner Gurpreet Kaur (from Preet City, Sector 82) said,” I will work for the people of my area and try to provide better civic amenities for them.” Out of the 10 wards where the saffron party put up a decent fight, four are urban areas and six are semi-urban. The bad news for the BJP was that in wards where it did not finish in the first two, it left no visible trace since the difference in votes was exceptionally high. Reportedly, the BJP struggled to find a good candidate for these wards.

BJP’s prospect may have been brightened by the fact that in most of the wards the contest was fragmented among five or six contestants. BJP district president Sanjeev Vashishth said, “Most of our candidates were first-time contestants. We will work on our shortcomings and hoping for more seats next time.”

In the three civic bodies of Zirakpur, Dera Bassi and Lalru, the BJP bagged third spot with 21,718 votes (18.66%) out of the total 1,16,3358 votes. Topper AAP (35.69%) bagged 41,519 votes, SAD received 25,528 votes (21.94%) and Congress (16.26%) finished fourth with 18,920 votes.