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Updated: Oct 25, 2019 22:10 IST

Leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party in Jammu and Kashmir said on Friday they have grabbed the most of number of seats in the block development council (BDC) polls held on Thursday, prompting the Congress to say that the results were “an eye-opener” for the BJP.

Official figures given by Jammu and Kashmir’s electoral officer, Shailendra Kumar, show that the BJP won 81 seats, 217 were bagged by Independents, Congress got one and Panthers Party eight seats.

More than 216 people had contested the BDC polls on the BJP’s ticket.

The BJP couldn’t even cross the half the number of seats in the BDC polls even though all major opposition political parties staying away.

The BJP bagged 18 seats in Kashmir, 52 in Jammu and 11 in Ladakh. It was eyeing a major portion of the BDC seats from all three regions, however, Independent candidates supported by leaders of various political parties played a spoilsport for the BJP.

The BJP’s leadership, including some national leaders, had campaigned vigorously for these polls in all the regions.

Even in Ladakh, which was declared Union territory by the Centre, the BJP’s performance wasn’t as impressive and the party could win only 11 seats, while Independents bagged 19 seats in Leh and Kargil districts.

The president of Congress’ J-K unit, Ghulam Ahmad Mir, said the results show en entirely different picture.

“This result is an eye-opener for the BJP. Despite the tall claims of the BJP leaders that people in all the regions are happy with the removal of the special status of the state, the people have shown them the mirror,” Mir said.

Mir said that the BJP lost more than 230 seats.

“They (BJP) lost seats in its major strongholds - Jammu, Kathua and Samba. They lost this despite the entire government helped them. Had the opposition parties participated in the polls, the BJP couldn’t have won more than 40 seats,” the Congress leader added.

The BJP’s general secretary Ashok Koul, however, had a different calculation.

Koul said while speaking to HT that many of the party’s men contested the BDC elections as Independents in Kashmir.

“If we add the Independents to our tally then it’s around 140 seats. Only 81 candidates won on the BJP ticket. We had taken a decision that BJP candidates will contest as Independents at many places in the Valley. Twenty Independent candidates who won are our workers and 26 others who won were helped by us,” Koul said.

He, however, said that the party even won four seats from the Muslim-majority Kargil.

“We are satisfied with these results,” he added.

Sajjad Kargili, who contested the last parliamentary elections from Ladakh as an Independent, said that the people of Ladakh have shown the BJP that they are against them.

“The results are an eye-opener to all. We had worked and formed a strategy to defeat them,” Kargili said.

The BDC polls were held for the first time in the history of the state, which will be bifurcated into two Union Territories – J-K and Ladakh – on October 31.

For the 307 posts of BDC chairperson, 1012 candidates were in the fray in Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh. The polling was held under high-security arrangements and the Electoral College formed of panches and sarpanches, who had got elected last year.

Opposition National Conference (NC), Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Congress had boycotted these polls and blamed the government for giving cakewalk to the BJP candidates.

The leaders of Congress, PDP and the NC said that taking part in the BDC polls when all the entire leadership are in jail was a useless exercise.