The Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) resounding victory in Uttar Pradesh’s urban local body (ULB) polls, winning all 17 mayoral seats and the highest number of councillors’ seats in Municipal Corporations, and members’ seats across Nagar Panchayats and Nagar Palika Parishads proved that the party is ticking all the boxes necessary to emerge victorious in Uttar Pradesh, and staying significantly ahead of other parties in election management.
These polls, the last pan-State elections before the 2024 General Elections, provided tough lessons to the main opposition, the Samajwadi Party (SP), which performed miserably despite party chief Akhilesh Yadav’s campaigning. The verdict has elevated the stature of U.P. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, who addressed 50 rallies to reaffirm that he’s the top vote catcher in the State after Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Apart from winning all the 17 Municipal Corporations, the saffron party emerged victorious in over 800 out of the 1,420 seats in the councillors category; 89 out of 199 posts of Nagar Palika Parishad Chairpersons; and around 200 out of the 544 posts of Nagar Panchayat Chairperson. Many Independents registered success in the posts of Nagar Palika Parishad and Nagar Panchayat Chairperson. The SP bagged only 191 posts of councillors in Municipal Corporations, and 35 posts as Nagar Palika Parishad Chairperson. In the previous local body polls held in 2017, the BJP had won 14 out of 16 mayoral seats, while losing Meerut and Aligarh to the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP).
