Cong, BJP trade claims over Himachal ULB poll results

Shimla: With the results of elections to 25 municipal councils and 22 nagar panchayats declared on Sunday, both the ruling Congress and the opposition BJP have staked claim to victory in the urban local body (ULB) polls in Himachal Pradesh, despite the elections not being contested on party symbols.Polling for the four municipal corporations of Dharamshala, Solan, Mandi and Palampur was also held on Sunday alongside the municipal councils and nagar panchayats. The result will be out on May 31. Unlike the other civic bodies, elections to the four corporations were contested on party symbols. The political battle intensified on Monday as leaders from both parties presented contrasting interpretations of the results. Congress state organisation secretary Vinod Zinta claimed that Congress-backed candidates had emerged victorious in 31 out of the 47 municipal councils and nagar panchayats across the state. He termed the outcome a major endorsement of the Congress govt and said the party had performed particularly well in Kangra district. BJP state president Dr Rajeev Bindal questioned how the ruling party could claim victory when it had not issued any official candidate list for the elections. He recalled that Congress leaders had publicly stated before the polls that any party worker was free to contest independently. In such circumstances, the Congress claiming electoral success was misleading and laughable, he remarked. Zinta, however, alleged nearly 80% of the candidates officially declared by the BJP had suffered defeat in the elections. According to him, the BJP's performance remained weak in districts such as Shimla, Kangra, Mandi, Kullu and Sirmaur, where many BJP-supported candidates failed to secure even a single seat. Bindal asserted that the BJP had secured 120 out of the 229 seats in the 25 municipal councils, while Congress won 89 seats and independents captured 20 seats. Describing the outcome as a "historic victory", he called it a public referendum against the Congress govt. He also accused the state govt of attempting to delay the panchayati raj and urban local body elections, alleging that the process only moved forward after intervention by the high court and Supreme Court. MSID:: 131175898 413 |