Routed even in its traditional strongholds
WHAT HAS REALLY SHOCKED THE PARTY IS ITS PERFORMANCE IN HINDU-DOMINATED AREAS WHERE IT WAS HOPING TO MAKE A MARK
CHANDIGARH : The civic body election results came as a major setback to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as it miserably failed to put up a decent fight even in its traditional strongholds.
This was for the first time that the party was in the electoral fray in Punjab after parting ways with its erstwhile alliance partner Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD). Of a total of 350 wards in the municipal corporations, the party won from only 20 (nearly 5%), whereas it wrested a mere 38 of the 1,009 seats it contested (3.7%) in the municipal councils and nagar panchayats.
During electioneering, the party faced backlash in the wake of the farmers’ agitation as many of its party leaders were not even allowed to move freely, especially in the towns and cities where it doesn’t contest the assembly polls. But what left the party high and dry is the outcome in its traditional strongholds of Hoshiarpur and Pathankot where it was holding mayoral posts for the past 10 years.
In Hoshiarpur, the party won only four of 50 seats whereas in Pathankot, the hometown of state unit chief Ashwani Sharma, it mustered only 12 of a total of 50 seats.
What has really shocked the party is its performance in Hindu-dominated areas where it was hoping to make a mark banking on the possibility of reaction of the community to the farmers’ protests due to violence at the Red Fort on Republic Day.
The party failed to win even a single seat in the Bathinda, Kapurthala, Moga, and Abohar municipal corporations as well as in the Gurdaspur, Ferozepur and Dasuya municipal councils.
Its rout in the Mukerian, Rajpura and Batala civic bodies came as a surprise to the party. In Batala, another Hindu-dominated town, only three of the 50 party candidates managed to win. “The results point towards the Congress enjoying the backing of Hindu voters. It appears that the farm agitation has weakened our core base. Besides, our workers were completely demoralised,” a senior leader said.