BJP''s Renu Bala Gupta retains Karnal mayor''s seat

Parveen Arora
Tribune News Service
Karnal, December 19

The BJP mayoral candidate Renu Bala Gupta retained her seat by defeating independent candidate Asha Wadhwa, supported by the Congress, INLD and BSP by 9,348 votes.

Karnal Mayor's seat was reserved for a woman and eight candidates were in the fray. Incumbent mayor Gupta received 69,960 votes, while Asha Wadhwa got 60,612 votes. Kurukshetra MP Raj Kumar Saini's Loktantra Suraksha party supported independent candidate Komal Chandel remained at third position with 10,019 votes, while Beant Kaur received 7,336 votes, Tulsi got 1,644 votes, Rani Kamboj received 1,029, Radha Rani managed to get 889 votes, while Shiksha Mohan got 501 votes. As many as 1,032 voters opted NOTA in Mayor election.

Out of total 20 councillors, the BJP managed to win 12 seats. From ward-1, the BJP candidate Naveen Kumar won with the help of lucky draw as both Kumar and independent candidate Subhash got 2,293 votes each. In ward-2, independent candidate Balwinder Singh secured victory with a margin of 1,405. He received 3,714 votes, while his rival BJP candidate Gurpreet Singh got 2,309 votes.

In ward-3, independent candidate Manjit Kaur won with the margin of 2,145 votes, while independent candidate Neelam secured victory in ward-4 by 1,421. BJP candidate Jai Bhagwan Kashyap won by 334 votes from ward-5, BJP candidate from ward-6 Neelam won by 800 votes, independent candidate Sudarshan Kumar won from ward-7 by 887 votes.

BJP candidates Megha Bhandari, Mukesh Arora, Vir Vikram Kumar, Ramanjeet Kaur, and Monika Garg from ward-8,9,10, 11 and 12, respectively, won by 464, 2507, 4739, 2625 and 4817, respectively.

Independent candidate Ish Kumar Gulati secured victory by 1,033 votes from ward-13, BJP candidate Ram Chander Kala won by 16 votes from ward-14, independent candidate Yudhveer Singh Saini won by 867 from ward-15. BJP candidate Rajni secured victory from ward-16 by 151, while independent candidate Joginder Sharma won from ward-17 by 44, BJP candidate Harish Kumar Bittu won by 289 from ward-18, BJP candidate Rajesh Kumar won from ward-19 by 2,007 and from ward-20 independent candidate Monu won by 27 votes.

The average age of the elected councillors is 37 and out of 20 councillors seven are women. Two are graduates or above, seven are twelfth pass, seven are tenth pass and one is fifth standard pass. For councillors are from Scheduled Caste, four from BC/OBC and 12 are from general category.