http://www.telegraphindia.com/1151227/jsp/nation/story_60618.jsp
MP civic poll setback for BJP - Congress wrests 4 urban bodies OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT Bhopal, Dec. 26: The BJP today suffered the aftershock of a parliamentary bypoll defeat in Madhya Pradesh, losing four urban bodies to the Congress. Last month, the ruling party had lost the Ratlam Lok Sabha seat to the Congress. Today, when the results of eight municipal and city council elections were announced, the Congress had won five and BJP three. Earlier, the BJP had bagged seven of the eight bodies. The Congress retained its hold over the Bhedaghat city council in Jabalpur district. The four urban bodies it wrested from the BJP are the Shajapur municipal council and city councils of Majholi, Dhamnod and Orcha. Voting for the municipal elections was held on December 22. The BJP won three bodies - Mandsour, Sehore and Shahganj. There was no word from chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan. But Madhya Pradesh BJP chief Nand Kumar Chouhan attributed the defeat to "local factors". When the BJP did exceptionally well in the civic body elections this August, Chouhan had declared: "This is the first time in history that BJP has won 16 corporations in the state. We owe this success to the people, Congress should think that defaming would not help in politics." The BJP controls all civic bodies in the big towns of the state - Bhopal, Indore, Gwalior, Jabalpur and Chhindwara. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was away in the UAE then, had congratulated the Madhya Pradesh BJP. He had tweeted: "MP civic poll results are gladdening. I thank people of MP for reposing their trust in BJP. I salute efforts of Karyakartas & party leaders." Today, there was silence. BJP insiders attribute the party's downslide to the growing disquiet among farmers in the state. They said the BJP was well entrenched in urban centres but losing grip in semi-urban and rural areas where price rise and the agrarian crisis had become potent issues. As many as 141 tehsils (sub-districts) in the state have been declared drought affected. A study by the Madras Institute of Development Studies has put the number of farmer suicides in Madhya Pradesh at over 2,000 a year. The Madhya Pradesh government has, however, pegged the figure at 1,100. "I won't go into the reasons but 1,108 farmers took their lives last year," Chouhan said at a special one-day Assembly session convened in November to pass a supplementary budget to provide relief to farmers. Chouhan had camped in Ratlam for 16 days and addressed 52 rallies, making it a prestige battle to retain the seat that was traditionally a Congress stronghold but which the BJP had won in 2014. The BJP lost by 88,000 votes. -- Peace Is Doable -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send an email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/greenyouth. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
