Haryana Municipal Corporation Polls: BJP sweeps all five cities, including Bhupinder Hooda's bastion

Mayoral candidates of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday swept all the five cities – Hisar, Karnal, Panipat, Rohtak and Yamunanagar – in the municipal corporations elections. The elections, held on Sunday, recorded a 69.39 per cent voter turnout and were held amid tight security arrangements. However, the poll percentage in these corporations dropped slightly in comparison with the elections held last time. The polling was held in Hisar, Karnal, Panipat, Rohtak and Yamunanagar, and the two municipal committees were Jakhal Mandi in Fatehabad and Pundri in Kaithal.

In Yamunanagar, BJP’s Madan Singh won by more than 40,000 votes margin. In Panipat, Avneet won by over 74,900 votes. Renu Bala won in Karnal, Gautam Sardana in Hisar, while Man Mohan registered victory in Rohtak.

Talking to reporters, chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar said, “This victory in mayoral elections of the BJP is a win of the government’s policies and the party’s hard work, especially in Panipat where our candidate won by a massive margin.”

The civic poll victories are a moral boost for the saffron party, which lost powers in three states -- Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh -- in the recently concluded assembly elections.  

The polling was held in all the 110 wards of the municipal corporations of Hisar, Rohtak, Yamuna Nagar, Panipat and Karnal and 25 wards of Jakhal Mandi (Fatehabad) and Pundri (Kaithal). State Election Commissioner Dalip Singh said 59 candidates, including 40 men and 19 women, had contested the election to the seats of mayor, and 592 candidates (322 men and 270 women) contested the election to the municipal corporation.

A total of 89 candidates (35 men and 54 women) had contested the election to the municipal committees in Jakhal Mandi and Pundri.There was no report on any defective EVM.

The election and police observers keep a strict vigil on the overall process of the elections, he said.Of the 14,01,454 electorate eligible to cast their vote using EVMs, 7,44,468 were men and 6,56,986 women.