Gujarat municipal corporation polls: BJP wins one more seat in Kuber Nagar, Ahmedabad tally reaches 160

Ahmedabad: In the recently concluded Gujarat municipal corporation elections, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) secured another seat in Kuber Nagar, Ahmedabad, taking BJP’s tally of seats in the area to 160.

BJP’s Gitaba Chavda won the Kuber Nagar seat, defeating Congress` Jagdish Mohanani. An error in the counting of votes of the ninth round was reported earlier, which was referred to the State Election Commission (SEC) by the BJP.

The SEC conducted a scrutiny and declared the BJP candidate as the winner in the civic body polls. With Mohanani`s defeat, the Congress panel in Kuber Nagar has collapsed. After the matter was referred to the State Election Commission by the BJP, SEC conducted a scrutiny and declared the BJP candidate as the winner.

The BJP on Tuesday put up a spectacular performance in the Gujarat municipal corporation elections improving its numbers over the 2016 polls and nearly decimating the Congress. The saffron party on February 23 swept elections to six municipal corporations in Gujarat by winning 483 out of 576 seats. 

The ruling party retained power in all the six municipal corporations in the state -- Ahmedabad, Surat, Vadodara, Rajkot, Jamnagar and Bhavnagar. The polls were held on February 21.

The main opposition Congress got a drubbing, as it won only 55 seats and failed even to open an account in Surat. On the other hand, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) put up an impressive show by winning 27 seats, all in Surat, and emerged as the main opposition in the Surat Municipal Corporation.

The AAP had for the first time fielded 470 candidates across all six corporations. The BJP won 159 out of 192 seats in Ahmedabad, 68 out of 72 seats in Rajkot, 50 out of 64 seats in Jamnagar, 44 out of 52 seats in Bhavnagar, 69 out of 76 seats in Vadodara and 93 out of 120 seats in Surat.

Congress, on the other hand, won seats in single digit in three corporations and drew a blank in Surat. The party won 25 seats in Ahmedabad, four in Rajkot, 11 in Jamnagar, eight in Bhavnagar and seven in Vadodara.

Asaduddin Owaisi's AIMIM, which also contested local body polls in Gujarat for the first time, won seven seats in Ahmedabad's Muslim-dominated Jamalpur and Maktampura wards.

Three candidates of the Bahujan Samaj Party won in Jamnagar, while an independent candidate won only in Ahmedabad. The BJP had won 389 seats and Congress 176 across these six municipal corporations in the 2016 elections.

The saffron party gained 94 seats while Congress lost 121 seats this time.