Chandigarh MC House: BJP defeats Congress to clinch senior dy mayor, dy mayor posts

Having secured a numerical edge with the defection of three Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) councillors, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) bagged the posts of senior deputy mayor and deputy mayor in Chandigarh municipal corporation (MC) House after a repoll on Monday.
With 19 votes polled in his favor, BJP’s Kuljeet Singh Sandhu clinched the post of senior deputy mayor, defeating INDIA bloc’s (Congress +AAP) Gurpreet Singh Gabi, who polled 16 votes. One vote was declared invalid.
The saffron party’s Rajinder Sharma was declared the deputy mayor with 19 votes while his contender from the INDIA bloc, Nirmala Devi, got 17 votes.
While the BJP leaders termed it a crucial victory ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, the Congress and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) said that the saffron party could win only because of horse-trading and the conduct of free-and-fair elections by the mayor, who owes allegiance to the AAP.
In the 35-member House, a party needs 19 votes to win. The BJP had 14 councillors during the mayoral polls but its strength went up to 17 on February 19 when three AAP councillors — Punam Devi, Neha Musawat and Gurcharan Kala, joined the party in the presence of BJP national general secretary Vinod Tawde in New Delhi.
With 17 councillors on its side, one vote of BJP MP Kirron Kher and the support of the sole SAD councillor, the saffron party managed to reach the magic figure.
On the other hand, AAP with 10 councillors and the support of Congress, which has seven councillors, was hoping for cross-voting to tilt the scales in its favour but with no luck. It had earlier managed to wrest the mayor’s post from the BJP’s grasp following a hard-fought legal battle that reached the Supreme Court.
The many twists and turns in the elections
Ever since the polls were notified on January 10, it has run into multiple controversies. First, the polls were rescheduled from January 18 to February 6 by UT. After the Punjab and Haryana high court intervened, the UT decided to conduct the elections on January 30. But what happened on January 30 hit the national headlines as the AAP-Congress combine accused presiding officer Anil Masih of vote-tampering. After counting of votes, Masih, a BJP leader, had declared Sonkar, the saffron party’s candidate, the winner even as the Congress-AAP alliance had 20 votes in the House while the BJP had 16 that day. Masih had allegedly declared eight votes polled to Dhalor as invalid, which resulted in a huge controversy as he was caught on live cameras defacing the eight votes. Masih now faces perjury proceedings in the Supreme Court.
But the Supreme Court on February 20 declared AAP candidate Kuldeep Dhalor the winner of the mayor seat after noting that Masih defacing the eight ballot papers in question was “obvious”. Also, the apex court directed fresh elections for the two posts.
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They say:
“We thank the mayor for conducting a free and fair election, in contrast to what the BJP did earlier. BJP returning officer Anil Masih’s role was shameful. All of INDIA bloc’s votes remained intact in today’s elections.” HS Lucky, Chandigarh Congress president
“AAP is a party of honest people, the result of which was seen today in polls. Mayor Kuldeep Kumar has given proof of honesty by conducting the entire election process without any noise and misdoing. People of Chandigarh will never forgive the murder of democracy by BJP.”
SS Ahluwalia, AAP co-incharge
“Mayor Kuldeep Kumar should ethically resign as AAP has only 10 councillors. Our victory is crucial and we are committed to the development of the city.”
Jatinder Pal Malhotra, BJP president