Candidates look on as polling staff count the votes of urban local body elections of Jammu and Kashmir for 52 civic bodies, at a Counting Centre in Srinagar, on Saturday. Photograph: PTI Photo
Jammu, October 20 (PTI) The Bharatiya Janata Party won the urban local body elections in four districts of militancy-infested south Kashmir on Saturday, winning 53 of the 132 wards, where polls were held over four phases earlier this month, election officials said.
The BJP was also leading in all the 10 districts of Jammu region as the counting of votes continued.
However, the party failed to open its account in Ladakh region.
Kashmir
The unprecedented victory for the saffron party has given it control of at least four of the 20 civic bodies in the four districts of Anantnag, Kulgam, Pulwama and Shopian.
The results of 94 wards of south Kashmir have been declared so far in which the Congress has managed to win 28 seats.
The party, thus, will have control of at least three municipal bodies.
The BJP did well in Shopian where its candidates won in 12 wards unopposed. Five wards in the district did not have any nominations.
In Devsar municipal committee, the party won all the eight seats. The area is represented by Congress leader Mohammad Amin Bhat in the legislative assembly.
The BJP got a simple majority in Qazigund Municipal Committee, winning four of the seven wards. The other three wards had no candidates.
In Pahalgam municipal committee, the party won seven of the 13 seats uncontested, while there were no candidates for the remaining six seats.
The Congress, on the other hand, won a thumping majority in Dooru municipal committee, the stronghold of Jammu and Kashmir Pradesh Congress Committee chief G A Mir.
The party bagged 14 of the 17 seats, while the BJP managed to win two seats. One seat remained vacant.
Congress also won in Kokernag municipal committee, bagging six of the eight seats. In Yaripora, the party bagged three seats, while the remaining three seats were vacant due to absence of candidates.
Independents bagged 13 seats in the polls.
The counting of votes of Anantnag and Mattan -- the other two civic bodies in south Kashmir -- is going on and the results are expected later Saturday.
Elsewhere, Congress won the Budgam municipal committee bagging six seats, while the BJP won four seats. Three seats were vacant.
In Chrar-e-Sharief, Congress won 11 of the 13 seats, while the remaining two seats were vacant. In Chadoora too, the party won six of the eight seats, while there was no candidate for the other five seats
Jammu
The counting of votes in the state's winter capital began at Government Polytechnic Institute in Bikram Chowk at 9 am.
The results for JMC so far indicate an edge to the BJP over its rivals.
There are 521 wards in the 10 districts of Jammu, which went to polls in the first three phases of the four-phased ULB elections in the state, which concluded on October 16, recording a high voter turnout of 68.4 per cent in the electorate of nearly 6.44 lakh people.
13 candidates were elected to different municipal wards unopposed, leaving a total of 2,137 candidates in the fray.
Of the 32 results declared for the 75-member JMC so far, the largest municipality in the state, the BJP has won 19 followed by independents (nine) and the Congress (four), officials said.
The BJP had won 25 seats in the last municipal elections for the JMC in 2005, while the then ruling Congress had emerged victorious with 26 seats.
In 13 wards of Kishtwar Municipal Committee, officials said independents won 10 seats, while the Congress and the BJP won two and one seat, respectively.
Of the three municipal committees in Ramban, officials said results were declared for seven-member Batote Municipal Committee with BJP winning four, Congress one and independents two seats.
In Kathua district's Basohli, BJP won five seats while Congress and independents were successful in four wards each.
The results of six other municipal committees in the district are awaited, the officials said.
In Rajouri district's Sunderbani Municipal Committee, the BJP won with 10 of its candidates winning, while three seats went to independent candidates.
In Kalakote Municipal Committee, six independents and one Congress candidate registered wins, officials said.
Six BJP candidates won from Reasi Municipal Committee, which saw five independents and two Congress candidates registering their wins in the 13-member body, they said. PTI TAS IND
Ladakh
Out of the total 26 wards in this region, the Congress bagged all the 13 seats in Leh municipal committee.
It also won five wards in neighbouring Kargil district, election officials said.
Six seats in the region have gone to independent candidates, while the result of only two seats is awaited, they said.
The Ladakh Lok Sabha constituency is represented by BJP's Thupstan Chhewang, but the Congress had won three of the four assembly segments in the parliamentary constituency in the state polls held in 2014. The other assembly segment is represented by an independent MLA.
In the 208 wards that went to polls in Kashmir division in the four-phased elections earlier this month, the Congress has won 70 wards so far followed by 53 wards by independents.
The BJP has managed to win only 21 seats, while the Janata Dal-United bagged one seat, the officials added.
BJP candidate gets 7 of 9 votes
BJP candidate Bashir Ahmad Mir from Shankarpora was on Saturday elected as a corporator of the Srinagar Municipal Corporation by a slender margin of seven votes.
Interestingly, only nine votes were polled in Shankarpora ward in the outskirts of the city on October 8.
Mir was so confident that he had announced his victory at the Shankarpora polling station as soon as the voting concluded.
"The total number of votes polled in the ward was nine, out of which I got eight. My opposite (candidate) got only one," he told reporters at SKICC here where counting of votes was held.
The polling for the Shankarpora ward in Baghi-Mehtab area of the city was held in the first phase of the four-phased urban local body polls.
