Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Jan 8: Despite winning two seats less that the Aam Aadmi Party in the recently held elections, the BJP managed to win the elections for the post of the mayor of Chandigarh municipal corporation and both the deputy mayoral posts leaving the councilors of the AAP, which had emerged as the single largest party, crying foul.
Ruckus broke out in the Assembly hall soon after the result for the mayoral poll was announced in favour of the BJP’s Sarabjit Kaur. AAP members surrounded the Deputy Commissioner Vinay Pratap Singh who was chairing the election process. But the BJP members rushed to his aid and later with the help of the marshals forced the completion of the election process electing two deputy mayors, both posts grabbed by the BJP.
In the just concluded elections, the AAP had won 14 seats in the 35-member municipal corporation, while the BJP, which held 26 seats in the outgoing house was reduced to 12. The Congress had won eight seas and the Akali Dal one.
The BJP managed to poll 13 seats while one vote came from the Chandigarh Member of Parliament Kirron Kher, who is an ex-officio member of the municipal house. Later one vote of the AAP was declared invalid and BJP’s Sarabjit Kaur won the mayoral elections by 14 votes to AAP’s 13. Seven members of the Congress and the lone Akali Dal member had abstained from voting. Particularly for the Congress fighting both the BJP and the AAP elsewhere in the country, abstention was its best option as the party could not support either of the two parties on the eve of the elections to the Punjab Assembly.
Crying foul, AAP councillors sat next to the newly-elected Mayor and did not allow Deputy Commissioner Vinay Pratap to move, stalling the election process of the post of Senior Deputy Mayor and Deputy Mayor for some time.
After recently winning 14 of the 35 seats in the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation polls, AAP was looking to make it to the Mayor’s post for a major boost ahead of the upcoming Assembly election in Punjab. Meanwhile, BJP did its best to save its image after its poor performance in the civic body polls where the number of wards it held fell from 26 to 12.
Saturday, initially both AAP and BJP managed to bag 14 votes each. Although AAP councillors argued that an MP cannot vote in the Mayoral elections, they were given a copy of the Act by the secretary which showed a provision saying if an MP is the ex-officio member of the House, he or she can vote in the polls.
Later, one vote in AAP’s favour was termed invalid, leaving it with just 13 against BJP’s 14 votes.
BJP’s Dalip Sharma beat AAP’s Prem Lata by two votes to win the senior deputy mayor’s position. Sharma polled 15 votes against Lata’s 13. BJP’s Anup Gupta won through a draw of lots after votes were tied 14:14 between him and AAP’s Ram Chander Yadav.
AAP councillors created a ruckus after the counting alleging that the BJP had been favoured in the counting process. As councillors surrounded her chair, marshals were called and they removed both set of councillors. Meanwhile, AAP president Prem Garg entered the Well of the House and was taken out by the marshals. The AAP later alleged that the Congress had helped the BJP to win the mayoral polls in Chandigarh.
