The BJP suffered a big jolt in the Cantonment Board elections in Varanasi, Agra, Mathura and lucknow, while it retained its supremacy in Delhi. All the candidates supported by the BJP in Varanasi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s parliamentary constituency and lucknow, represented by Home Minister Rajnath Singh, lost while it won just one seat in Agra and came second in Bareilly and Mathura.
The BJP lost on all the seven seats it contested in the lucknow Cantonment Board elections despite aggressive campaigning by State party president laxmikant Bajpai and State secretary Pankaj Singh. This was the first time that the BJP fielded candidates in the Cantonment Board polls. However, the elections were not held on the party’s official symbol, the lotus. Interestingly, no other party contested the Cantonment Board election officially.
There were eight seats in the lucknow Cantonment Board, out of which BJP contested on seven seats and lost. It was a similar scenario in Varanasi where the party contested on all the seven seats in the Cantonment Board polls but lost and Independent candidates won all the seats.
In Agra too, the BJP’s performance was dismal as it won just one ward with Independents romping home in seven seats. The BJP had contested all the eight seats on the party symbol there. The BJP bagged two of the seven wards in Mathura with the remaining five going to Independents, while in Bareilly the Independents and the BJP got four and three seats respectively.
Cantonment Board is a civic administration body under the control of Ministry of Defence. The Board comprises elected members besides ex-officio and nominated members as per the Cantonments Act, 2006. It takes care of mandatory duties like provision of public health, water supply, sanitation, primary education and street lighting etc.
When contacted, BJP spokesperson Vijay Bahadur Pathak said the party contested in 11 Cantonment Boards in all. While in some places the results were not in favor of the party, in other places some success was achieved. “All the results will be reviewed and necessary steps will be taken accordingly. During the elections, lots of problems in cantonment areas came to light. These will be taken under consideration and a future strategy will be prepared,” he added.
Asked for his reaction to the party’s poor performance in the elections, laxmikant Bajpai said most of the candidates lost as they were not given the official party symbol. Commenting on the BJP’s rout, UP Minister and Samajwadi Party leader Ambika Chowdhury said the results had proved BJP’s tall claims hollow. “BJP had made tall claims but could not come up to the expectations of the people. In UP Assembly by-elections soon after Narendra Modi swept to power at the Centre, BJP lost nine out of 11 seats. Now it will taste more defeat in the days to come in all elections at least in Uttar Pradesh,” he said, adding, “People have understood the reality.”
Meanwhile, in Delhi, in a setback to newbie Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), the BJP and the Congress on Monday managed to retain five and two seats respectively in the Delhi Cantonment Board elections. AAP, which had won the Delhi Cantonment seat in the last Assembly poll, could grab only one of the total eight seats.
The Cantonment Board results came as a blow to the AAP whose vote share decreased by about 14.83 per cent in comparison to the Assembly elections. Interestingly, the vote share of Congress party increased by 11.36 per cent in comparison to the last State elections and the votes secured by the BJP decreased by about 2.09 per cent.
The Delhi Cantonment seat had witnessed a photo finish of sorts during the last Assembly elections, which had resulted in the victory of AAP’s Surender Singh over BJP’s Karan Singh Tanwar, with a little over 300 votes.