BJP make merry with Vijayapura, Kollegal local body wins

The ruling BJP celebrated on Monday after emerging victorious in urban local body elections at Vijayapura up north and Kollegal in the south, projecting this as good news ahead of the 2023 Assembly elections.

Elections to the Vijayapura City Corporation and Kollegal City Municipal Council were held on October 28 whose results were announced on Monday.

Of the 35 seats in the Vijayapura civic body, the BJP has emerged as the single-largest party by winning 17 seats, leaving behind the Congress which bagged 10 seats. AIMIM won two seats and the JD(S) one. Five independents also won. The BJP is expected to wrest the Vijayapura civic body with the help of independents.

In the Kollegal CMC, the BJP won six out of seven seats in a bye-election, thanks to Kollegal MLA N Mahesh. Formerly with the BSP, Mahesh joined the BJP last year.

“This result is a forecast that the lotus will bloom across Karnataka in the upcoming election,” Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai said, thanking voters and congratulating party leaders.

BJP national general secretary B L Santhosh pointed out that these local body polls were held “amidst much publicised” Bharat Jodo Yatra of the Congress, adding that the party increased its tally by four seats in Vijayapura.

The BJP winning 17 out of 35 seats in the Vijayapura civic body that has a sizable number of Muslim voters is also seen as an endorsement of the popularity of saffron party Bijapur City MLA Basanagouda Patil Yatnal.

BJP vice-president Nirmal Kumar Surana said his party had never won the Vijayapura civic body election and described Monday's result as "historical".

Surana said seven of the ten Congress candidates who won in Vijayapura are Muslims, accusing the party of minority appeasement. "Of the total 35 seats, the Congress fielded 17 Muslims," he said.

"In Belagavi also, Congress won 15 seats of which nine are Muslims. In Kalaburagi, 18 out of 27 Congress seats have Muslims. This shows the Congress is becoming a Muslim League," he added.

The Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) was also in the fray in Vijayapura. While it did not win any seat, the AAP candidate in Vijayapura’s ward 20 lost by just 41 votes against the Congress contender. "We got 5.52 per cent overall vote share in the 15 wards we contested," AAP state president Prithvi Reddy said.