Lucknow
The ruling BJP rejected opposition claims it had received a setback in the UP panchayat polls and called itself the “overall winner”, as the counting of ballot papers in the mammoth exercise ended Wednesday.
Samajwadi Party spokesperson Anurag Bhaduria claimed his party has bagged over 800 of the 3,000 in zila panchayat seats, breaching the BJP bastions of Gorakhpur, Varanasi and Ayodhya. But the UP BJP chief Swatantradev Singh countered this.
“We fought on over 3,000 seats for the post of zila panchayat members. The claims of opposition parties the BJP performed badly in the panchayat election are incorrect. We will remain ahead, and emerge as overall leader in the polls,” he told PTI.
Asked if the party’s tally of zila panchayat members will exceed 918, as predicted by the BJP on Monday, he said,”Nothing can be said now, there could be a dip.”
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