Badminton star Saina Nehwal on Sunday took to Twitter to congratulate the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, Yogi Adityanath, for his “thumping victory” in the Zila panchayat elections. Nehwal had joined the BJP in January last year.
“Hearty congratulations for thumping victory in Zila Panchayat Chairperson election in UP @myogiadityanath sir,” Saina tweeted.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Saturday registered a massive victory in zila panchayat chairman posts elections by winning 65 seats out of a total of 75. While Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party (SP) has managed to get just six seats and others won only four.
The polling on 53 seats began at 11 am on Saturday and continued till 3 pm and the counting of votes began right after that, the State Election Commission said. Chairpersons of 22 zila panchayats in 22 districts of Uttar Pradesh have declared elected unopposed on Tuesday. Of these, the BJP won 21 seats, while the Samajwadi Party grabbed one seat in Etawah.
The poll panel did not announce the party affiliation of the winning candidates but the BJP later claimed victory over 21 seats and the SP over one seat of the Etawah district. Ahead of crucial Uttar Pradesh assembly elections next year, this election was seen as a litmus test for political parties to see the ground reality among the voters.
In most of the seats in today’s district panchayat president elections, the main contesting parties were the BJP and SP. Meanwhile, the Zila Panchayat Chairperson polls in Uttar Pradesh is an alarm bell for both the Congress and Samajwadi Party (SP). Congress lost its bastion of Rae Bareli from where Sonia Gandhi is the sitting MP while the SP lost in stronghold areas like Mainpuri from where Mulayam Singh Yadav is the MP. In Amethi, the Congress did not contest but the SP candidate lost by a massive margin to BJP’s Rajesh Agrahir.
