The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has chalked up a big victory in the Uttar Pradesh Zilla Panchayat polls, registering wins in 67 seats and causing Akhilesh Yadav's Samajwadi Party (SP) an upset.
The latter has managed to pick up only five seats. In 2016, it had won 60 seats. Meanwhile, others registered wins in three seats on Saturday.
PM Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah both took to Twitter to congratulate the party on the win.
"The BJP has won 67 out of 75 district panchayat chairperson seats. We will win 2022 assembly elections also," UP BJP chief Swatantra Dev Singh told news agency ANI.
Uttar Pradesh Deputy CM Keshav Prasad Maurya called the party's win "historic". He said the SP's defeat came despite the party having deployed "goons" and "mafia" to win the polls, reported ANI.
State Election Commissioner Manoj Kumar had said on Tuesday that 22 districts of the state – Saharanpur, Bahraich, Etawah, Chitrakoot, Agra, Gautam Budh Nagar, Meerut, Ghaziabad, Bulandshahr, Amroha, Moradabad, Lalitpur, Jhansi, Banda, Shravasti, Balrampur, Gonda , Gorakhpur, Mau, Varanasi, Pilibhit and Shahjahanpur – had see unopposed elections. Of these, 21 went to the BJP and SP picked up one – Etawah.
Elections were held on Saturday for the remaining 53 districts of the state, and counting began at 3 pm the same day.
The Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party did not fight the polls.
Saturday's election saw several untoward incidents, with SP workers, who held a street protest in Prayagraj claiming rigging, being met with police baton charge, according to NDTV. Meanwhile, ruckus between SP and BJP workers was reported in Ballia, which also required intervention by the police.
(With inputs from ANI.)
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