(PTI)
Ruling BJP swept the Uttar Pradesh civic polls bagging nine of the ten mayoral seats for which results were declared till evening today while leading in six others where the counting was in progress. Opposition Congress again fared poorly, including in its bastion of Amethi, while the BSP had some reason to cheer as its candidate snatched the Aligarh mayoral seat, a traditional BJP stronghold.
In what was being dubbed as Yogi Adityanath’s first electoral test after he became the chief minister, the BJP bagged several prestigious mayoral seats including Ayodhya, Varanasi, Lucknow, Gorakhpur and was leading in several others.
In Ayodhya, BJP’s Rishikesh Upadhyay secured 44,642 votes and defeated nearest rival SP’s Gulshan Bindu, a transgender, by 3,601 votes. In Prime Minister Narendra Modi Lok Sabha constituency of Varanasi, BJP candidate Mridula Jaiswal defeating her nearest opponent, Shalini of the Congress, by a comfortable margin of 78,843 votes.
