DEHRADUN: Opposition Congress , which was being seen as a sinking ship by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has given a jolt to its competitors by leading on three mayoral seats in seven Municipal Corporations across Uttarakhand . The opposition party also managed to secure around 120 seats of councillors and was leading on 30 more till the time of filing this report.Importantly, Congress couldn’t win even single mayoral seats in civic elections of 2013. The party also secured lesser number of councillors in last urban body polls.Congress candidates, Sumit Hridesh, son of leader of opposition Indira Hridesh was leading with over 2000 votes in Haldwani municipal seats till 8 pm on Tuesday. In Haridwar, Congress’s candidate Anita Sharma was leading with 2323 votes. Hemlata Negi, Congress’s mayoral candidate from Kotdwar was leading with 4100 votes by the time of filing this report.The party also managed to 120 seats of councillors from across the state while it was leading on 30 seats till 8 pm.In 2013’s civic polls, Congress had no mayor in Uttarakhand. The party secured 135 councillor’s seats from across the state. Congress also managed to register victory on 13 Nagar Palika Parishad seats while it bagged six Nagar Panchyat seats in the hill state.The results came as surprise for even Congress which witnessed a major infighting just before urban body polls. Due to this only party’s big leader skipped campaigning. Leaders of opposition Indira Hridesh is the only who neglected the campaigning in the state and focused only on her son. Former chief minister Harish Rawat also participated in the campaigning in last two days. Party’s former state president Kishore Upadhyay said that he wasn’t even invited for the campaigning for the civic polls.Keeping the in-flights and differences aside, Congress President, Preetam Singh, feels that his party has performed fairly well and this is a good sign for 2019.“BJP’s over-confidence is shattered after people’s mandate. Congress has performed fairly well even after the fact that BJP has used both power and money to win elections,” he added.

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