Punjab Panchayat polls: Emphatic win for SAD-BJP

The ruling SAD-BJP combine in Punjab has registered a resounding victory in Zila Parishad and Panchayat Samiti elections romping home in majority of the seats.
With almost all the results available here this evening, the SAD-BJP combine bagged 297 Zila Parishad seats out of 329.
The Congress party managed to pocket 26 seats while others succeeded in winning six, a state Election Commission spokesperson said.
Out of 2731 Panchayat Samiti seats, the results of 2729 had been declared with the SAD-BJP combine romping home in 2122, Congress 454 and others 153.
Thirty candidates to Zila Parishads and 229 to Panchayat Samitis were elected unopposed earlier.

The polls, held every five years, were won by SAD-BJP last time also.

Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal thanked the people for reposing their faith in the SAD-BJP alliance.
"It is a victory for constructive politics based on a vision of peace and communal harmony. It is also a referendum on our government's performance," he said.
Badal asked the state Congress leaders to accept their party's defeat with "grace, humility and democratic dignity".
The Congress party's refusal to accept the people's mandate with humility was surprising, he said.
Punjab Congress chief Partap Singh Bajwa had dismissed as "mischievous" the SAD-BJP's claim of landslide victory.

"It is not a popular mandate," he had said yesterday.