UP local polls

After a dismal show in the assembly elections three months ago, the Bharatiya Janata Party returned with a bang, sweeping mayoral seats across the state. The party won nine out of 12 seats, including Lucknow, after the results of four-phase civic polls were announced. 
The Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party didn’t contest these elections but the SP-supported candidates won in Bareilly and Ghaziabad while Allahabad seat went to BSP-supported candidate. 
SP-supported candidate Sudha Rawat was declared winner in Ghaziabad amidst vehement protest by the BJP nominee Teluram and party workers. 
As for Congress, it was a total wipeout for the party which failed to win a single seat. 
The mayoral elections were important for the BJP and the Congress because they chose to contest it on their symbols. For the BJP, the victory came as a booster after a poor performance in assembly polls in February in which it won only 47 seats out of 403. The party improved its 2006 show when it had won eight mayoral seats. 
On the other hand, after a poor show in Delhi and Mumbai municipal corporation elections, Congress was totally rejected by urban voters of UP as well. The party failed to retain even a single of three seats it had won last time. It lost in Bareilly and Jhansi from where it won in Lok Sabha polls. 
The Congress could not even win in nagar palika and zila panchayat elections in Nehru-Gandhi bastion of Amethi and Rae Bareli. Political analysts said that Team Anna’s relentless campaign against the UPA government had a major impact on urban voters and helped the BJP. 
The saffron party successfully defended its bastions Lucknow, Varanasi and Agra. In Lucknow, Prof Dinesh Sharma was re-elected mayor with a margin of 1. 71 lakh votes, highest ever in urban local bodies elections in the state. It also won Jhansi, Morabadabd, Agra, Aligarh, Varanasi, Gorakhpur, Kanpur and Meerut. 
A beaming UP BJP chief Laxmikant Bajpayi claimed that the SP government’s honeymoon was over. Giving credit to the people's support after God's blessing and BJP workers' hard work, Bajpayi said: “People's honeymoon of 115 days with Samajwadi Party government is over and with this support now BJP will ensure a divorce between the people and SP government in 2014 LS poll.” 
The results do leave a lesson or two for parties like SP and BSP even though they didn't contest the elections. The pro-BJP result only three months of assembly election will for sure force SP think-tank to introspect. Their inability to act swiftly on acute power crisis plaguing the state and inaction against the bigwigs responsible for corruption as was claimed by the party leaders before and after assembly elections for sure changed the approach of the people from what it was three months back. 
For BSP, which has not taken part in local bodies elections after 2002, the election results may help in reworking the strategy and may also force the party to think especially after assembly election debacle that it was now time to woo urban voters keeping in mind the 2014 election. Victory of party supported mayoral candidate Abhilasha Gupta, who is also the wife of former BSP minister Nandlal Gupta 'Nandi', must have come as a consolation after the party’s poor show in the Sangam city in assembly polls. 
Elections were held for 630 urban local bodies in the state, including 12 municipal corporations, 195 nagar palika and and 423 nagar panchayats. The polling was held in four phases. The polling percentage was around 50%. The elections in the four districts were deferred because of Lok Sabha by-polls in Kannuaj. The SP had won the recent assembly election with majority. It had performed well in the urban areas as well but decided not to contest urban local bodies elections on party symbol to avoid the embarrassment, in case party candidates do not perform as per the expectations.