The early trends of the municipal corporation elections in Haryana seem to have jolted the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its ally Jannayak Janata party (JJP)—the alliance has suffered a defeat for the post of president in three municipal committees, Uklana (Hisar) , Dharuhera (Rewari) and Sampla (Rohtak), at the hands of independent candidates. The BJP is trailing in the election for the post of mayor of Sonepat municipal corporation and in Rewari for the post of president.
The counting of votes is underway for the elections to three municipal corporations of Sonepat, Ambala and Panchkula, the municipal council of Rewari and three municipal committees—Sampla, Dharuhera and Uklana.
In the Uklana municipal committee election, independent candidate Sushil Sahu defeated JJP’s Mahender Soni for the post of president. In Sampla, independent candidate Pooja , who was backed by former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, defeated the BJP nominee for the post of president. In the Dharuhera municipal committee election, independent nominee Kanwar Singh became the president by defeating rival Sandeep Bohra by 632 votes. Singh got 3,048 votes, BJP’s Bohra got 2,416 votes and JJP’s Man Singh got 1,657 votes.
In the Sonepat municipal corporation election, the Congress’ Nikhil Madaan was leading BJP’s Lalit Batra by 4,440 votes after 12 rounds of counting, of the total 18 rounds. Madaan got 47,572 votes and Batra polled 43,132 votes.
Independent candidate Upma Yadav was leading BJP’s Poonam Yadav by 3,079 votes for the post of president of the Rewari municipal council. Upma Yadav got 9,677 votes and Poonam Yadav bagged 6,598 votes, while the Congress candidate Vikram Yadav received 5,202 votes.
However, in Panchkula, BJP’s mayoral candidate Kulbhushan Goyal was leading by a margin of 2,917 votes till the ninth round of counting.
There are 37 rounds, of which till the ninth round, 31,634 votes had been counted. The counting is going on at the Government College for Girls, Sector 14 amid tight security. Special teams of 230 cops are on duty and anti-mob vehicles have been deployed.
The roads to the college will remain sealed till results are announced.
Till 11am, BJP’s Goyal got 16,202 votes, while Congress’ Upinder Kaur Ahluwalia got 13,285 votes.
In Ambala, former union minister Venod Sharma’s wife and Haryana Janchetna Party’s (HJP) candidate Shakti Rani Sharma is ahead of BJP-JJP’s Vandana Sharma by 5,269 votes in the election for the post of mayor of the municipal corporation, as of 11am, after the ninth round of counting.
Shakti Rani Sharma has been leading in every round since the counting began at 8am, except in round six, where she trailed by a mere 47 votes.
After the ninth round, Shakti Rani Sharma received 23,832 votes, Vandana Sharma received 18,573 votes, Congress’ Meena Aggarwal is at the third spot with 9,756 votes, while the Haryana Democratic Front’s Amisha Chawla is at the fourth position with 8,232 votes.
The counting of 66,579 of the total 105,683 votes polled (56.3%) on Sunday, is taking place at the strong room at OPS Vidhya Mandir in Sector 9 here.
The counting for the elections of 20 wards is also going on simultaneously, of which results of three have been declared. From ward 3 and 7, BJP candidates and from ward 1, an HJP candidate have won.
