The Yogi magic held a sway across Uttar Pradesh as Bharatiya Janata Party swept the municipal bodies elections. In a shot in the arm for the Yogi Government, the ruling party bagged all the 17 municipal corporation mayoral seats in the state.

BJP candidates also won from Meerut and Aligarh, which the party had lost in the last civic elections. Besides, BJP’s Archana Verma was elected as the first mayor of Shahjahanpur, which went to polls for the first time this year after becoming a municipal corporation.

It is noteworthy here that Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had made a fervent appeal to the people  to vote for the BJP candidates to add the third engine to the double engine government in the state during his marathon campaigning.

Out of a total of 17 mayoral candidates fielded by the BJP, 14 were new faces while the party had placed bets on the outgoing mayors in Kanpur, Bareilly and Moradabad. The party won all the 17 seats.

Four BJP candidates achieved the distinction of becoming mayors for the second time. Pramila Pandey from Kanpur, Vinod Agarwal from Moradabad and Umesh Gautam Anwarat from Bareilly, all became mayor for the second time in a row while Harikant Ahluwalia has been the mayor of Meerut earlier too. BJP’s Bihari Lal was the first to win in Jhansi. Other candidates who contested the election lost even their deposits.

CM Yogi addressed a total of 50 rallies to campaign for BJP candidates in the municipal elections. The chief minister held public meetings in 10 municipal corporation areas falling under 9 divisions.

In all, Yogi Adityanath held a total of 28 rallies in the first phase, which included participating in rally cum conferences at 4 places in Gorakhpur, 3 in Lucknow and two in Varanasi. Voting took place on May 4 in 37 districts during the first phase.

For the second phase of polls held on May 11for seven municipal corporations of nine divisions, CM Yogi held 22 rallies. CM Yogi held public meetings  twice in Ayodhya. The presence of the CM in the Sant Sammelan played a big role in the candidate’s victory in Ayodhya.