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By Abhishek Mishra: In the recent UP civic polls, the BJP may have been able to win all the 17 Nagar Nigam seats and logged a landslide victory but the numbers in the western part of the state, especially in Meerut, Ghaziabad and Saharanpur divisions, did not signify the impact of the Yogi wave at the Nagar Palika and the Nagar Panchayat levels.
This has become a major concern for the party as the data showed that Yogi Adityanath’s magic did not work in the rural and semi-urban areas.
In the Meerut-Saharanpur division, except for the mayor’s seat, the BJP’s magic did not work. The saffron party lost 64 of the 90 seats in the municipality and the panchayat presidentships in both the mandals. The BJP candidates could win only on 26 seats and independent candidates have worked their magic in cities like Baghpat, Muzaffarnagar, and Ghaziabad. Importantly, these are the districts where the BJP was reduced to just one seat each.
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In both the mandals, the BJP got the maximum number of seats in the municipal bodies from Bulandshahr. Of this, nine chairmen are from the BJP. Even though the BJP’s campaign revolved around the impact of Yogi Adityanath’s governance and benefits of flagship schemes, it could not transcend into votes in these divisions.
Talking about leaders, General VK Singh (Retd.) is an MP from Ghaziabad. Sanjeev Balyan is a Union minister from Muzaffarnagar. Apart from these, Narendra Kashyap from Ghaziabad, Somendra Tomar and Dinesh Khatik from Meerut, Kunwar Brijesh Singh from Deoband, KP Malik from Baghpat, Jaswant Saini from Saharanpur are also state ministers. Also, there is one Rajya Sabha MP each in Ghaziabad-Noida and two in Meerut. But this could not get the numbers in their favour.
Similarly, the BJP’s state organization general secretary Dharampal is from the Bijnor district. State vice president of BJP Mohit Beniwal Shamli, state ministers Dr Chandramohan and Amit Valmiki are from Bulandshahr, state minister Basant Tyagi is from Ghaziabad. The exercise to deploy ministers on ground could not work for the BJP.
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As the reason for BJP’s defeat has been said to be about the ticket claimants damaging approach, there was a huge uproar in the party over the distribution. There were open allegations of money exchanging hands in the distribution of tickets. In Bulandshahr, the BJP gave tickets on two seats to candidates who joined the party just a year back. The old workers, who did not get the chairman’s ticket, contested the elections as rebels and got the votes.
On the other hand, in Noida’s Jewar seat, a candidate who joined BJP a few days before the election was given a ticket. The BJP cadre turned revolted and the result was that the candidate finished at the fourth spot. The BJP also lost Loni, Khoda and Muradnagar seats in Ghaziabad due to infighting. The candidates who did not get a ticket fought against the party as independents, creating a triangular fight.
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