Amid farm protests, BJP-JJP suffer civic poll jolt in Haryana

Following the debacle in the Baroda byelection held recently, the BJP-JJP alliance witnessed defeat in mayoral elections as it lost two out of three seats.

Haryana Jan Chetna Party’s contestant Shakti Rani Sharma emerged as winner in the Ambala mayor election, defeating the BJP candidate with a huge margin of more than 8,000 votes. It is pertinent to mention that she is the wife of former Union minister Vinod Sharma, who is a political stalwart in the state. 

BJP candidate Lalit Batra lost the mayoral election in Sonipat to the Congress› Nikhil Madan with a huge margin of 13,817 votes which has forced the saffron party to mull over the defeat. The BJP, however, succeeded to win the Panchkula mayor seat. The party›s contestant won the battle with a margin of 2,047 votes.

Apart from this, it is worth mentioning that the JJP, alliance partner of the BJP, could not prove its mettle as out of the 13 candidates fielded for the post of councillor in the mayor election, the party lost 11 seats. A total of 60 seats fall under mayor elections in Ambala, Panchkula and Sonipat, 20 each. Out of these, the BJP succeeded in winning 27 seats of councillors which is the highest number. The main Opposition party, Congress, remained on the second position, winning 19 seats, followed by Haryana Jan Chetna Party with 7 seats.

Political experts are of the opinion that both BJP and JJP continue to witness decline due to recent decisions and are required to mull over the same. In this series, the recent contentious farm laws annoyed the farmers along with other sections of the society which made both, particularly the BJP in the state, face a tough time.