BJP sweeps Gujarat civic body polls, Congress on back foot

NEW DELHI: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) swept the municipal body elections by winning 483 seats out of the total 576 seats. The ruling party retained the power in all the six municipal corporations of the state namely Ahmedabad, Surat, Vadodara, Rajkot, Jamnagar and Bhavnagar.

Congress, as the main opposition, won only 55 seats and failed to get even a single seat in Surat. On the other hand, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) showed an impressive entry into the civic body polls with 27 seats to their name in Surat. The party had fielded 470 candidates for the first time across all the 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 just 25 seats in Ahmedabad, four in Rajkot, 11 in Jamnagar, eight in Bhavnagar and seven in Vadodara. Asaduddin Owaisi’s All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM), which contested the civic body polls in Gujarat for the first time, won seven seats in Jamalpur and Maktampura wards.