GUWAHATI More than a month after bagging 75 of the 80 municipal boards across Assam, the BJP and its regional ally on Sunday swept the Guwahati Municipal Corporation elections.
The BJP and Asom Gana Parishad won 58 of the corporation’s 60 wards. The former won all 52 seats that it contested and the latter won six of the seven seats it contested.
The Congress, which contested 54 wards – the most among the political parties – drew a blank while new entrants Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Assam Jatiya Parishad won a ward each.
But the AAP candidates put up a tough fight, losing a few of the seats by a narrow margin.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi thanked the people of Guwahati for the “resounding mandate” to the BJP “to build on the agenda of development”. Taking to Twitter, he said the voters of Guwahati blessed the hard work of the State government under Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma.
Mr Sarma termed it an historic win for the party and said the mandate reaffirmed the people’s faith in the government under the guidance of the Prime Minister.
The GMC election was held on April 22 after a gap of nine years with electronic voting machines being used for the first time. In all, 197 candidates had contested the polls across 57 wards as the BJP candidates in the remaining three wards had been declared winners without contest.
The State Election Commission said 52.8% of a total of 7,96,829 voters had exercised their franchise across 757 polling stations, 80 of them handled exclusive by women polling officials.
