Tamil Nadu urban civic polls: From four to 22, BJP hails results, says rehearsal for next Assembly elections

The best-ever performance by the Bharatiya Janata Party in the Tamil Nadu urban local body polls is being seen by it as a rehearsal for the next assembly elections in the southern state where it is yet to find firm political footing.

The BJP’s Tamil Nadu incharge and national general secretary CT Ravi echoed this view after the results were announced on Tuesday.

“This is the first time that we have fought polls in the state without an ally. While we are glad about the result, we will term it as rehearsal before we can do a proper expansion in the state," he told News18.com. “This has definitely given us more confidence and our cadre practice to engage with voters in the state."

The BJP contested all previous elections in the state in alliance with the AIADMK. The party still has a long way to go, Ravi added.

In the last edition, the BJP had secured four seats in the corporation and this time it has bagged 22. In the municipality it got 37 seats last time, which it has improved now to 56. In town panchayat, the saffron party had netted 185 seats in the previous election, which it has raised to 230.

The Bharatiya Janata Party has emerged as the third-largest party in Tamil Nadu because of the vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the benefits of central schemes, said Tamil Nadu BJP chief K Annamalai while speaking to News18.com after the results came out. Ravi too had pointed this out. The Congress has more in terms of numbers but that’s in an alliance with the state’s ruling DMK, the saffron party said.

While the vote share last time was around 2.5 per cent, the BJP has more than doubled it this time. “We are expecting: more than 5.5 per cent as the final data is yet to come, " Annamalai added. “We have overtaken PMK, both the communists, Seeman Party, Kamal Haasan’s party and others. They were technically ahead of us till now."

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February 23, 2022 at 12:30PM