The BJP created history by winning the mayor seat of the municipal corporation of Haldwani here on Tuesday, defeating his nearest rival Abdul Mateen Siddiqui of the Samajwadi Party by 1,409 votes.
It is worth mention here that the Congress Party has been in power in the local civic body of Haldwani for a long time. But after granting the status of corporation to the municipal council of Haldwani during the previous BJP regime, this was the first civic election of the municipal corporation of Haldwani in which the BJP managed to occupy the top seat of mayor of Haldwani today.
While Abdul Mateen Siddiqui of the SP managed to get 20614 votes, BJP’s Joginder Rautela received a total 22023 votes, registering a victory with a margin of 1409 votes.
Surprisingly, the Congress party that was expected at least to give a tough fight in this civic polls to BJP’s Rautela, had to satisfy with the third position in the overall performance tally of different candidates securing only 13,802 votes.
The interesting fact is that Congress candidate Bagarwal was second to BJP’s Rautela in first two rounds of counting of votes, while the SP finally turned out to be runner up in this civic polls which was third in the candidates’ performance chart in first two rounds.
While after first round of counting of votes BJP received 11567 votes, Hemant Bagarwal of the Congress got 6578 votes followed by SP’s Sidqqui with only 2281 votes.
But surprisingly, the SP showed a huge improvement in its votes tally securing 12089 votes after second round of counting of votes, while Bagarwal of the Congress Party received 12106 votes and BJP’s
Rautela got 21215 votes after second round of counting of votes. However, after third round of counting of votes , result went to BJP’s favour.
Thus as the statics provided by the district election office reflect, out of a total 64441 votes while BJP’s Rautela got 22023 votes followed by Bagarwal of the Congress Party with 13802 votes and SP’s Siddiqui with 20614 votes.
The others including BSP’s Anita Singh received 1448 votes, Ravi of UKD got 688 votes followed by independent candidates including A Saifi with 279 votes , C Mohan with 1289 votes, N H Khan with 708 votes, NS Jyala with 529 votes, Prema Joshi with 1240 votes, R S Bisht with 794 votes lM Joshi with 326 votes and Sartaj Aalam with 701 votes.
Meanwhile, BJP’s Rautela after winning the mayor elections said that maintaining cleanliness of the city would be his top priority.
“Besides, I would address the civic concern of the city ward wise so that proper civic development could be ensured,” Rautela added.