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Rajasthan Municipal Elections: Tug of war ensues between BJP and Congress to woo Independent councillors
With an outstanding number of independent winners, speculations are that BJP and Congress are not going to leave any stone unturned to tempt and woo the 'untagged' councillors.
Updated : Aug 21, 2015, 04:03 PM IST
 "State Election Commission, Rajasthan")
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Rajasthan Municipal Elections for 129 civic bodies concluded on Thursday with the Bhartiya Janata Party securing maximum number of seats and winning in most of the civic bodies.
A few BJP leaders seem confident that the party will have presidents in at least 80 civic bodies,the Rajasthan Patrika reports. Nominations for the same were conducted between 10 to 11 am on Friday, with voting underway between 2:30- 5 pm. This will soon be followed by counting.
The disappointing performance of BJP on the home turf of Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje is the little that Congress and other opposition parties can feel good about.
Jhalawar Municipal Corporation and Jhalrapatan Municipal Corporation, both fall in Raje's constituency, where Congress has full majority with 20 and 15 seats respectively. Although Raje didn't participate in the municipal election campaign at all, many believe this heist should be analysed differently. No formal statement has been made by the BJP so far.
Congress MLA from Sapotra, Ramesh Mina, who was appointed as head of the municipal elections campaign, gave all credit to the hard work and unity showed by the party workers in Jhalawar and Jhalrapatan.
Out of the 129 civic bodies, BJP has clear majority in 43, Congress in 16 while the independents have majority in as many as 12 corporations. In the remaining 57 corporations, both major parties failed to secure majority.
The overall performance for the Congress too wasn't as disappointing based on its deteriorating performances across the nation. Out of 3351 wards, 1441 BJP councillors were elected against Congress' 1164. 704 independent candidates won as councillors whereas Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Communist Party of India (CPI) and CPI (Marxists) won only 16, five and one ward respectively.
With an outstanding number of independent winners, speculations are that BJP and Congress are not going to leave any stone unturned to tempt and woo the 'untagged' councillors. A report in Rajasthan Patrika suggests that soon after the results the two rival parties approached the independent winners in order to win them over to their side. Elections for the president of each civic body are underway.
