NaMo, not DeMo, was on voters’ mind

Nitin Jain

The BJP’s unexpected landslide victory and the Congress’ decimation in the December 18 Municipal Corporation elections in Chandigarh has a clear message from the voters. They still want the BJP, notwithstanding the post-demonetisation blues, rising petroleum prices and other local issues which await a solution even a year after saffron party Mayor Arun Sood has been in office.

And this sentiment is doubly underlined by the margin of victory logged by the BJP candidates, the highest being 9,421. It underscores the point that the massive inconvenience caused to the people due to the note ban was never an issue for Chandigarhians. It will not be inapt to say Chandigarhians have voted for Narendra Modi, more than the BJP.

However, some observers seek to dilute this point by stating that Chandigarh has a very high literacy rate and the percentage of voting remained what it was the last time. The Congress feels that it was a clever ploy by the BJP to have got additional currency pumped into the currency chests just two days before the polling to mollify people.

While the Congress ranks, who had made much of the note ban an issue, are demoralised; the BJP workers and leaders are in high spirits and feel strongly that the outcome of the MC poll will find an echo in the coming Punjab Assembly elections.

The mandate is not only shocking for the decimated Congress but is also beyond what the BJP had expected. “We were expecting a majority, but not a two-thirds,” confided a senior saffron leader.

In the two-decade history of the civic body, it is the biggest victory for the BJP. Earlier, its best performance was in the maiden MC elections in 1996 when it had won 13 seats.

And for the Congress, it is the second poorest show after only one seat, which it had won in the 1996 civic body poll.

This time, the BSP, which contested 17 seats, and the Left, which contested as Independents, failed to open their accounts. In 2011 and 2006, the BSP had won two and one seat, respectively.

For the SAD also, it swas not a good show as it came down from two in 2011 and 2006 to one this time. It had contested four seats in alliance with the BJP. It was a landslide victory for the BJP, which won 20 of the 26 seats while the Congress was decimated with only four seats.  A BJP rebel, Dalip Sharma, also won as an Independent from Ward No. 19. And it is for the first time in the MC history that any party has got an absolute majority in the House.

In a major setback to the Congress, which had won nine seats in the 2011 MC poll, its four former mayors -- Subhash Chawla, Harphool Kalyan, Poonam Sharma and Kamlesh -- bit the dust.

Other prominent losers were local Congress president Pardeep Chhabra’s wife Ritu Chhabra from Ward No. 3, local SAD president Jagjit Singh Kang’s wife Inderjit Kaur from Ward No. 9, BSP city president Jagir Singh from Ward No. 7 and Punjab Government’s Assistant Media Adviser Vineet Joshi’s sitting councillor brother Saurabh Joshi of the BJP from Ward No. 18.

While BJP’s Anil Kumar Dube registered the highest victory margin of 9,421 votes from Ward No. 24, the lowest winning margin was 71 with which Congress nominee Ravinder Kaur defeated SAD’s Balwinder Kaur from Ward No. 15.

BJP’s sitting Mayor Arun Sood won from Ward No. 8 defeating his nearest rival Rajesh Sharma of the Congress by 2,077 votes.

With the BJP already winning 20 seats and its ally SAD one, the alliance also has a vote of local BJP MP Kirron Kher as an ex officio member in the MC House of 35; the nine nominated councillors with voting rights have also lost relevance unlike in all four previous hung MC Houses, when they played the kingmaker. As far as the vote share is concerned, the BJP bagged 42.98 per cent, Congress 33.57 per cent and SAD 6.24 per cent. The BSP polled 5.27 per cent votes while the Independents secured 10.34 per cent vote share. Only 1.58 per cent voters opted for NOTA, an option the voters got for the first time here.