BJP wins 47 of 75 Gujarat civic poll seats, Cong gets 16

GANDHINAGAR: Gujarat's ruling BJP won the most seats in municipal elections on Monday, but has lost ground compared to the last elections five years ago. The party has won 47 of 75 municipalities for which elections were held; it had won 59 in 2013.

Principal rival Congress has won 16 municipalities, five more than the 11 it had won last time. It had lost five of them two years later when its leaders defected to the BJP and are claiming Monday's result as a major gain. The party claimed that it also supported four Independents who have won and so its tally is 20.

Six municipalities did not give a clear mandate to either party, and the Congress has asserted that it will gather the support needed to form the municipal board in each of them.

The BJP's loss of 12 municipalities comes just two months after the party posted its weakest performance in years in assembly elections held in December last. The party won a fifth straight term in power in Gujarat, but not before a real fright as the Congress seemed to catch up several times, eventually reducing the BJP's margin of victory.

In some good news for the ruling party, it has won 27 of 28 seats in the municipality in Vadnagar, the hometown of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, with the Congress being able to win only one seat. The BJP had lost the Vadnagar seat in the assembly elections. See P5