In a major boost to Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s efforts to empower women of Uttar Pradesh, 140 women leaders of BJP will chair the urban local bodies in different districts.

Of the 17 BJP mayors elected to municipal corporations this year, six are women. Of the 17 BJP mayors elected to municipal corporations this year, six are women. All the six female candidates the BJP had fielded for mayor’s post have won.

 Besides, the mayoral candidates, who got maximum votes and the one who has won by the biggest margin, are also women.

Apart from six mayors, BJP’s female workers have been elected to 44 municipalities and 90 city panchayats.

BJP leaders said here on Monday that the Yogi Adityanath government’s ‘Mission Shakti’ is to accomplish the dream of half of the population not only in society but also in politics. Be it assembly, or the civic bodies elections, the government is providing women with level playing field, allowing them to prove their worth.

BJP mayor candidate Sushma Kharwal of Lucknow got maximum votes of more than five lakh whereas Sunita Dayal of Ghazaiabad has defeated a BSP candidate with the highest margin of 2.87 lakh votes.  Hemlata Diwakar from Agra, Kamini Rathore from Firozabad, Pramila Pandey from Kanpur, Sunita Dayal from Ghaziabad and Archana Verma from Shahjahanpur have got the distinction of becoming the first citizensnof their cities.

The biggest victory so far was from Agra where BJP candidate Hemlata Diwakar defeated BSP by more than 1.08 lakh votes. Kanpur’s Pramila Pandey won with over 1.77 lakh votes. Shahjahanpur’s Archana with 30,000 votes and Firozabad’s Kamini Rathore by more than 26000 votes.

The BJP has also won 88 of 198 municipal council president’s seats of which 44 have gone to female candidates.  It includes one each from Amethi, Amroha, Unnao, Kannauj, Kushinagar, Kanpur Dehat, Kasganj, Kaushambi, Ghazipur, Gonda, Noida, Jalaun, Jaunpur, Jhansi, Deoria, Fatehpur, Balrampur, Bahraich, Baghpat, Muzaffarnagar, Mainpuri, Rampur, Lalitpur, Bijnor, Sonbhadra, two each from Hathras, Etah, Pilibhit, Firozabad, Bareilly, Sitapur, and Banda as well as three each from Badaun and Bulandshahr.

A total of 90 BJP women have been elected as Nagar Panchayat chairperson as well in the 2023 elections. There are as many as 544 nagar panchayat seats in UP, of which results were declared for 543 with BJP bagging 191 seats, including 90 women.

The BJP women have won the maximum of 5 Nagar Panchaya president seats in Badaun, which includes Gularia, Rudayan, Kunwargaon, Mudia and Dahgawan seats. The women  have also bagged 4 seats in Kushinagar and Pratapgarh. Besides, BJP’s Rekha, Maya Devi and Geeta Devi have won from Fariha, Eka and Makhanpur seats at Firozabad respectively.

Among the BJP’s ward councillor winners Haqikun Nisha won by a record margin of 2227 votes from Baba Gambhir Nath ward in Gorakhpur.