BJP decimates the Opposition in Jharkhand Municipal Elections.

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), in a landslide victory, has won all five municipal corporation seats in the Jharkhand Municipal elections. The results were declared yesterday in which the BJP candidates won all the 10 posts of Mayor and Deputy Mayor. The 5 Nagar Nigams in which the polls took place were Adityapur, Hazaribagh, Giridih, Modinagar and the state capital Ranchi. This is a remarkable victory for the BJP and its workers considering that it is the first time that the elections were held on party lines. The BJP victory is also special as it was obtained after defeating candidates from regional parties such as Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) and All Jharkhand Students Union (AJSU). The other opposition parties such as Congress backed candidates too suffered losses in the Municipal elections.

Apart from the five municipal corporations, the elections were also held for 16 Municipal councils (Nagar Parishad) and 13 Nagar Panchayats in Jharkhand. The polling date was the 16^th of April while the results for all the elections came out yesterday on the 20^th of April. BJP’s incumbent Mayor from Ranchi Asha Lakra won the Mayor’s post for the second time while Sanjay Vijayvergiya won the Deputy Mayor’s post. Roshni Tirkey and Raj Kumar Lal from BJP won the Mayor and Deputy Mayor posts respectively in the Hazaribagh municipal corporation. Aruna Shankar and Rakesh Kumar Singh both BJP backed candidates won the Mayor and Deputy Mayor posts from the Medini nagar municipal corporation.

BJP performed excellently in the Nagar Parishad and the Nagar Panchayat polls as well. BJP backed candidates won seven of the president and 5 vice president posts out of the 16 Nagar Parishad elections. While they managed to clinch nine presidents and five vice president posts out of the total 14 Nagar Panchayats.

The elections of the 34 local bodies were a triangular fight between the BJP, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha and the Congress party. JMM led by Shibu Soren is known to have a strong loyal base in the tribal areas of Jharkhand while Congress has previously won seats from Jharkhand as well. This win of the BJP is the vote of the public of Jharkhand to the Chief Minister Raghubar Das. The BJP government in the state, led by CM Raghubar Das, has managed to instill hope in the hearts of the people from the mostly tribal state.  The present municipal elections have been held 3 years after the legislative assembly elections held in December 2014. Raghubar Das was appointed the CM following the legislative assembly elections.

Raghubar Das took to Twitter to thank the Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Amit Shah who have guided Jharkhand on the way of progress. He also thanked the public of Jharkhand for showing their faith and love to him and the party. Talking about the victory he also mentioned how this victory has stamped that the trust of people lies with the party.

BJP President Amit Shah also congratulated CM Raghubar Das, State President of BJP Lakshman Gilua and all the party workers for their victory. He thanked the public of Jharkhand for reposing their faith in the party.

This victory is crucial because it will pave the way for the win in the Lok Sabha elections as well as the state elections both of which will be held in 2019. This victory is a vote of trust by the masses on the progressive model of politics of the party in the state as well as in the nation. It also shows how the BJP is slowly but steadily making inroads in the hearts of the tribal and minority communities of the state under the leadership of PM Narendra Modi. The acceptance of BJP has improved greatly while those of the Congress and other opposition parties have suffered a massive blow. The public have clearly shown that they do not trust the divisive politics of the opposition.