The ruling Bhartiya Janta Party on Wednesday swept the mayoral elections in five cities in Haryana.
The BJP’s mayoral candidates from Hisar, Karnal, Panipat, Rohtak and Yamunanagar registered victory by huge margins with Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar terming it as a mandate in favour of BJP.
In a direct election to five mayoral posts for the first time, the INLD-BSP combine, which was contesting on four seats faced a severe beating and was even behind the independents.
“By giving mandate in favour of BJP, the people of the State have put their stamp on the welfare policies of the present State Government. The huge victory assumes special significance when the election was fought between BJP versus all,” said Manohar Lal while talking to the mediapersons here.
From Panipat, BJP’s Avneet Kaur registered a massive victory over her rival Anshu Kaur, who was backed by local Congress leaders. The BJP candidate had polled 126321 votes and won by a margin of 74940 votes.
From Chief Minister’s home constituency Karnal, BJP’s Renu Bala Gupta defeated Asha Wadhwa, who was supported by Indian National Lok Dal (INLD), Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and Congress, by a margin of 9348 votes.
BJP’s Gautam Sardana defeated Rekha Aren by a margin of 28091 votes to register win from Hisar, Manmohan Goyal defeated Congress-supported Sita Ram from Rohtak by a margin of 14,776 votes while in Yamunanagar, Madan Singh defeated Rakesh Kumar.
The BJP also registered victory on 62 seats out of 107 wards it contested in five MCs.