Dehradun: The mayoral polls, which were being seen as a ‘semi-final” between the ruling BJP and opposition Congress, proved a mixed bag of positives and negatives for both parties. While BJP was successful in winning the mayor post in five seats — which was the same number of seats it had won in the 2013 polls — Congress won two seats improving its tally from 2013 when it had failed to clinch even a single mayoral post.A major boost for the opposition party was winning the Haridwar seat, regarded as a stronghold of the BJP. The saffron party’s candidate Annu Kakkad, who was seen as the protege of Haridwar MLA and urban development minister Madan Kaushik, polled 56,205 votes losing to Congress nominee Anita Sharma who got 59,672 votes.In Dehradun, BJP’s Sunil Uniyal Gama polled 1,62,516 votes defeating Dinesh Agarwal of the Congress by a margin of 35,632 votes. The win was an important one for the BJP as Gama was CM Trivendra Singh Rawat’s handpicked choice for the post.Rudrapur saw tough competition between the Congress and the BJP and till the last round, it was hard to predict who the winner would eventually be. BJP’s Rampal Singh who got 39,882 votes edged past Congress nominee Nand Lal, who received 34,748 votesAt Kashipur, too, the saffron party’s Usha Chaudhary, who got 44,193 votes, edged past her opponent Mukta Singh of the Congress by a margin of 5,472 votes.The Haldwani mayoral seat was one of the most watched ones in these polls where sitting mayor Jogendra Pal Singh Rautela of BJP was pitted against Sumit Hridayesh, son of former finance minister and present leader of opposition Indira Hridayesh. Even though Sumit was initially leading in the race, eventually he got 53,939 votes, losing out to Rautela, who got 64,793 votes.Rishikesh, where mayoral polls were held for the first time, was the first seat for which the mayoral results were announced on Tuesday. BJP’s Anita Mamgain got 26,403 votes defeating her nearest rival Veena Deep Sharma, an independent candidate by 11,168 votes. Congress candidate Laxmi Sajwan lagged far behind and came third with 12,057 votes.Kotdwar, too, saw the mayoral polls for the first time. Congress candidate Hemlata Negi, who got 25,347 votes, defeated independent candidate Vibha Chauhan by 1,568 votes. BJP candidate Neetu Rawat, who is the wife of Lansdowne MLA Dilip Singh Rawat, received 11,386 votes and stood third.Expressing satisfaction over the results, CM Trivendra Singh Rawat said, “The people of Uttarakhand have showed faith in the work done by our government in the last one and a half years. We have emerged as the strongest party and our performance was commendable in the polls.”When queried about the loss suffered by the BJP in Doiwala which is his own constituency, Rawat said, “Apparently it seems the equations went wrong in Doiwala. But we will definitely introspect and identify the factors which led to our defeat there.”Meanwhile, Congress state in-charge Pritam Singh claimed that people “have rejected the work done by the Trivendra Singh Rawat government.” “Congress has given a good fight to the BJP on each seat. The results have boosted our morale and the party will fare well in next Lok Sabha elections,” said Singh.

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