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In a major jolt to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in Chhattisgarh, the party ceded seven out of ten urban bodies to the Congress and is trailing in another, with the opposition party bagging all four municipal councils and three out of six nagar panchayats on Thursday.
Polling for the total of 11 urban bodies, comprising one municipal corporation, four municipal councils and six nagar panchayats, was held on December 28 amid a high voter turnout of 75.11 per cent.
One mayor, ten presidents of municipal councils and nagar panchayats and 241 corporators will be elected through the polls.
The counting for lone Bhilai Municipal Corporation is still underway, wherein the Congress nominee Devendra Yadav is leading by over 30,000 votes for the Mayoral post against BJP’s Vidyaratan Bhasin, an incumbent MLA from Vaishali Nagar.
In 2014-15 civic elections, excluding urban bodies and Bhilai Municipal Corporation, the Congress had won four out of 10 municipal corporations while the BJP was reduced to four, two less than from the last time.
The four municipal councils that went to poll included Jamul in Durg district, Khairagarh in Rajnandgaon and Baikunthpur and Shivpur-Charcha in Korea district, while the six nagar panchayats were Maro in Bemetara, Konta in Sukma, Bhairamgarh and Bhopalpatanam in Bijapur, Narharpur in Kanker and Premnagar in Surajpur district.
Congress nominees Sarojani Chandrakar won from Jamul, Meera Chopra from Khairagarh, Ashok Jaiswal from Baikunthpur, and Ajit Lakra from Shivpur-Charcha in the municipal councils.
BJP won from only three nagar panchayats of Bhairmgarh (Bijapur district), Narharpur (Kanker) and Premnagar (Surajpur).
The party has won 88 out of 121 wards in ten urban bodies (as counting of votes is underway in Bhilai), followed by the Congress (62) and independents (21).
The victory came as a relief for the Congress which lost the mayoral post to the BJP in Birgaon Municipal Corporation poll held last month.