The ruling BJP swept the mayoral elections in Uttar Pradesh winning the posts in 16 of the 17 municipal corporations on Saturday. Official results for the Varanasi mayoral election are expected later on Saturday.

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, who claimed victory in all the 17 municipal corporations, thanked the people of Uttar Pradesh and congratulated BJP workers for forming a “triple-engine government” in the state after the party’s “biggest victory” in the urban local body polls.

The party’s candidates won in Lucknow, Ayodhya, Jhansi, Bareilly, Mathura-Vrindavan, Moradabad, Saharanpur, Prayagraj, Aligarh, Shahjahanpur, Ghaziabad, Agra, Kanpur, Gorakhpur, Firozabad and Meerut.

The urban local body polls were held in two phases — on May 4 and May 11 — to elect 17 mayors and 1,401 corporators. Nineteen corporators were elected unopposed, according to the State Election Commission.

Of the 17 municipal corporations, the BJP repeated its candidates only in Kanpur city, Bareilly and Moradabad and all three proved to be successful.

Adityanath said the win was a result of better coordination between the government and the organisation.

Flanked by Deputy Chief Ministers Keshav Prasad Maurya and Brajesh Pathak at a press conference at the BJP headquarters here, Adityanath said the BJP has won all the 17 municipal corporations for the first time.

“In all 17 municipal corporations, voters have reposed faith in BJP,” he said.

Earlier in a tweet, the chief minister said, “Hearty congratulations to all the dedicated and hardworking workers of the BJP and the people of Uttar Pradesh, who love good governance, on the massive victory of the BJP in the Uttar Pradesh municipal elections.”

“This massive victory reflects the successful guidance of respected Prime Minister Narendra Modi Ji and immense public faith in the pro-people, developmental and all-inclusive policies of the double-engine government,” he added.

Adityanath had led the campaign for the urban local body polls, holding several election meetings across the state. During the campaign, he had repeatedly urged voters to add a third wheel or third engine to the “double-engine” government in Uttar Pradesh.

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In the two-phase urban local body elections, voting was also held to elect 198 chairpersons and 5,260 members of nagar palika parishads, 542 chairpersons of nagar panchayats and 7,104 members of nagar panchayats.

In all, 162 public representatives were elected unopposed, while there were as many as 83,378 candidates in the poll fray for 14,522 posts.

In the urban local body elections, 53 per cent of voters exercised their franchise in the second phase covering 38 districts on May 11, while the voter turnout in the first phase on May 4 was 52 per cent covering 37 districts of the state.

According to the State Election Commission, 4.32 crore people were eligible to cast their votes in the urban local body polls. In 2017, the polls were held in three phases and the overall polling percentage was 53 per cent.