BJP wins post of Agra mayor for fifth consecutive time

AGRA: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate Naveen Jain was elected mayor of Agra on Friday. Jain defeated Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) candidate Digamber Singh Dhakrey by more than 74,000 votes. BJP retained the post of mayor of Agra for the fifth consecutive time. The party’s candidates for posts of ward councillor won 53 seats out of the total 100 in the city. BSP won 27 seats, Samajwadi Party 5 and Congress won 2. Independent candidates registered victory at 13 seats.
A total of 1,502 candidates were in the fray for different posts of 12 civic bodies in the district including Agra Municipal Corporation (AMC), six nagar panchayats and 5 nagar palika parishads. On Friday, vote counting started early morning at 8am under elaborate security cover at Mandi Samiti located on Firozabad road. During initial hours of vote counting, BJP had won majority of the seats of ward councillor. After 22 rounds of vote counting the BJP mayoral candidate had attained a decisive lead.
The BSP candidate was leading in the initial rounds of vote counting. After four rounds Dhakrey was leading over Jain by around 20,000 votes. However the situation reversed after 14 rounds of counting. BJP candidate was leading by more than 14,000 votes. The margin increased to 45,000 votes by end of round number 22.
In end, Jain received 2,17,881 votes whereas BSP candidate Dhakrey got 1,43,558 votes. Jain won the election by a record margin of 74,323 votes. The Samajwadi Party candidate got 49,788 votes and came third. Independent candidate Chaudhary Basheer was fourth with 35,243 votes whereas the Congress candidate secured only 22,554 votes. BJP had been winning the post of mayor of Agra since 1988.
In nagar palika parishads, Samajwadi Party candidate Rakesh Kumar was elected chairman of Etimadpur local body. BJP candidate Ashok Agarwal was elected chairman of Achnera, BJP candidate Sunil Babu won election in Bah and Trilokchand Mittal in Fatehpur Sikri.
Sanjay Kapoor was elected chairman of Swami Bagh nagar panchayat as an independent candidate; SP candidate Kishori Gupta was elected chairman of Pinahat; independent candidate Shanti Devi became chairman of Kheragarh; BSP candidate Pradeep Kumar became chairman of Jagner; Asha Devi of BJP won election in Fatehabad and independent candidate Shivrani won election in Kiraoli.