UP Civic Elections Results of Major Cities LIVE: BJP-14 BSP-2

Uttar Pradesh: The counting of votes for the municipal polls in Uttar Pradesh  began at 8 am on Friday. The counting of these local body elections is being considered as the first test of 8-month-long Yogi Adityanath Government. UP Civic Elections Results 2017 LIVE Updates of Major Cities:

• Of three seats of Varanasi, BSP leads in 2 and Congress leads on one
• Ayodhya: BJP mayor candidate Hrishikesh Upadhyay leads from Ayodhya. It is for the first time that mayor elections are taking place in Ayodhya
• BSP Mayor candidate ahead by 12,000 votes in Meerut
• Mathura: Bharatiya Janta Party candidate wins Mathura seat via lottery
• BJP Mayor candidate Abhilasha Gupta leads from Allahabad in early trends
• Kanpur: Counting of votes in Kanpur to begin 15-20 minutes late.
• Ghaziabad: BSP Mayor candidate leads. Earlier Ashu Verma from BJP was Ghaziabad mayor

Asha Sharma while performing prayers in her house ahead of counting/ ABP News image The election campaign had generated a lot of political heat with the ruling BJP leaving nothing to chance. Adityanath has himself led the campaign across the state to woo voters in the name of development, while opposition SP, BSP's campaigns were comparatively low key. The results will indicate whether the 45-year-old priest-turned-politician has been able to maintain BJP's popularity wave which saw the saffron party storm to power with a landslide victory in the state earlier this year. Of the urban body polls held in 2012, BJP had a mayor in 12 of the 14 municipal corporations. Only Allahabad and Rampur had mayors from the opposition camp. The Adityanath government after assuming office constituted municipal corporations of Ayodhya and Vrindavan-Mathura. In 2012, Uttar Pradesh was under Akhilesh Yadav-led SP rule and the feat was a major one for the BJP as it had not been in power for more than a decade then. List of mayors in Uttar Pradesh: Agra: Indrajit Balmiki (BJP) Allahabad: Abhilasha Gupta (BJP) Aligarh: Shakuntala Bharati (BJP) Bareilly: Dr IS Tomar (SP Supported) Ghaziabad: Ashu Kumar Verma (BJP) Gorakhpur: Dr Satya Pandey (BJP) Jhansi: Kiran Verma (BJP) Kanpur: Captain Jagatvir Singh Drona (BJP) Lucknow: Suresh Awasthi (BJP) Meerut: Harikant Ahluwalia (BJP) Moradabad: Vinod Agarwal (BJP) Varanasi: Ram Gopal Mohle (BJP)