Ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has won only two of the five Mayoral seats on which elections were held recently. These include; Katni, Rewa, Dewas, Ratlam and Morena Municipal Corporation Elections. The BJP has won the Mayoral seat of Dewas and Ratlam, while Congress claimed Morena and Rewa. In Katni, independent candidate Preeti Suri is all set to become the Mayor. Earlier, of the 11 municipal corporations, the BJP had won 7 seats, thus the BJP has won 9 of total 16 municipal corporations. In Rewa, Congress candidate Ajay Mishra defeated BJP candidate Prabodh Vyas by over 9,000 votes. The Congress has claimed the seat after a long gap of 24 years. Interestingly, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan himself had public meetings twice to canvass for the party candidate. However, in an another interesting contest, Sajjan Patel, son of Congress Rajya Sabha MP Rajmani Patel, lost the election of councillor by 72 votes from ward 16. He was defeated by BJP candidate Shaligram Napit. In Morena, the stronghold of Union Minister Narendra Singh Tomar, Congress candidate Sharda Solanki won by a margin of 12,874 votes. She defeated Meena Mukesh Yadav of the BJP. In Ratlam, BJP’s Mayoral candidate Prahlad Patel won by 8,591 votes. He defeated his next rival Mayank Jat of the Congress. While in Dewas, the BJP candidate Geeta Agarwal won by 45,884 votes. She defeated Vinodni Vyas and independent candidate Manisha Chaudhary. It was considered a triangular contest. In Dewas, 6 candidates were in the fray for the Mayor’s post. There were other candidates were also in fray in Ratlam; Aam Aadmi Party’s Anwar Khan, Samajwadi Party’s Afreen Khan and Nationalist Party’s Zahiruddin. Losing Morena Mayoral seat is a big setback to the BJP as it is the home turf of Union Minister Narendra Singh Tomar, apart from that the Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Jyotiraditya Scindia had also done a massive campaign in favour of the BJP candidate. On behalf of Congress candidate, former chief minister Kamal Nath, Leader of Opposition Govind Singh and former minister Jaivardhan Singh had also campaigned. The Katni Mayoral seat was also interesting as there were 12 candidates in the fray; however, there was a direct contest between Jyoti Bina Dixit of the BJP and the Congress candidate Shreha Raunak Khandelwal, but the rebel independent candidate of the BJP, Preeti Suri, romped home in a triangular fight. Shashi Prabha Tiwari from Aam Aadmi Party, Anjali from BSP, Anita from Samajwadi Party were also in the fray. Among the five municipal corporations, 2.52 lakh votes were cast in Morena, 1.71 lakh votes in Rewa, 1.93 lakh votes in Katni, 2.39 lakh votes in Dewas and 1.21 lakh votes in Ratlam.

A total of 49.9 lakh voters, including 25.20 lakh males, 23.88 lakh females and 292 from the third gender, exercised their franchise during the final phase of the urban local body polls. The BJP has swept Betul Municipal Council, winning 12 out of 15 wards. However, it fared poorly in Satai Nagar Parishad in Chhatarpur district where the party failed to win any seats. Congress has won 13 out of 15 wards, while the Samajwadi Party has won in the remaining two seats.

Congress has won Amarpatan Municipality in Satna after bagging eight out of 15 seats. The results for 214 urban

bodies, including five municipal corporations, 40 municipalities and 169 Nagar Parishads, will be declared on Wednesday late night. The counting of votes has started at 9 am. The voting for the second and final phase of civic body polls was held on July 13. According to the State Election Commission, 72.10% of voters exercised their franchise across 43 districts of State.