Ahmedabad, Oct. 23: “Modi magic” continued its victory spree in Gujarat with the BJP handing out a humiliating defeat to Opposition Congress in the panchayat and municipality polls on Saturday. After a thumping victory in the six municipal corporation polls two weeks ago, Mr Modi’s BJP scored unprecedented victory in the local bodies polls by winning 22 of 24 district panchayats, 178 out of 208 block panchayats and 47 out of 52 municipalities that had gone for voting on October 21.
After the results were announced, chief minister Narendra Modi praised his government for development works which paved way for the BJP’s stunning performance at the hustings.
In a subtle way, he also warned the UPA government to not create any further trouble for his government as people of the state are standing like rock with him. “You may have agencies like CBI, NIA, IB, RAW, which have been set loose after Gujarat and Modi, but I have people of Gujarat with me who will not tolerate any injustice to Gujarat,” Mr Modi said, addressing party workers after the results were announced. Meanwhile, debacle of the Congress has forced state party unit president Siddhartha Patel to resign, taking moral responsibility. Mr Patel was made party president following the resignation of Bharatsinh Solanki, who had resigned in the wake of Congress’ defeat in the 2007 Assembly polls.
“I have sent my resignation to the AICC president Sonia Gandhi, accepting moral responsibility for the party’s poor performance in the polls for municipal corporations and panchayats,” Mr Patel said in a statement.
The BJP’s victory march is particularly impressive as it wrested Dang and Anand district panchayats, which were always Congress bastions for decades.
Dang is a tribal district where BJP’s gamble of fielding Christian candidates has paid off with party winning in the panchayat for the first time after independence while Anand is a political turf of union minister Bharatsinh Solanki, whose father and grand father had begun their political career from Anand district panchayat.
Polls to 24 district panchayats, 208 taluka panchayats and 53 municipalities with 2.48 crore eligible voters took place Oct 21.
A total of 17,908 candidates were in the fray for 804 district panchayat seats, 4,071 taluka panchayat seats and 1,890 municipality seats.
Earlier this month, the BJP took control of all the six key municipal corporations of Gujarat — Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Rajkot, Surat, Jamnagar and Bhavnagar.