BJP wins both Chd dy mayor posts

Chandigarh, March 4: The BJP on Monday won the re-election for the posts of senior deputy mayor and deputy mayor of the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation, defeating the Congress candidates who were backed by the AAP.

On February 20, the Supreme Court had declared Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) councillor Kuldeep Kumar as the new mayor of the corporation, after it overturned the result of the January 30 mayoral poll in which BJP candidate Manoj Sonkar had emerged the winner.

Its judgment had come on allegations of tampering with ballots during the January mayoral polls.

As the mayor is the presiding officer for the elections to the posts of senior deputy mayor and deputy mayor, the polls were held again on Monday after the change in the mayoral post following the court’s judgment.

For the post of senior deputy mayor, BJP’s Kuljeet Sandhu defeated Congress’ Gurpreet Gabi. While Mr Sandhu polled 19 votes, Gabi got 16, and one vote was declared invalid.

Rajinder Sharma of the BJP defeated Congress’ Nirmala Devi to win the deputy mayor’s post. The winning candidate secured 19 of the total 36 votes polled.

The BJP had fielded the same set of candidates last time and they had won then too.

In the 35-member municipal house, the BJP has 17 councillors. The number of BJP’s strength increased from 14 to 17 after three AAP councillors switched over to it on February 19.

The AAP has 10 members while the Congress has seven. The Shiromani Akali Dal has one councillor. Chandigarh MP Kirron Kher, who is a BJP member, also has voting rights as an ex-officio member of the corporation.

In the January 30 poll, BJP’s Sonkar had defeated comfortably the placed AAP-Congress alliance candidate Kumar after the returning officer declared as invalid eight votes of the coalition partners.

Alleging tampering with ballots, councillors of INDIA bloc parties AAP and Congress had boycotted the elections to the posts of senior deputy mayor and deputy mayor, leading to the victory of BJP’s Sandhu and Sharma then.

Mr Kumar had on Wednesday assumed the charge as Chandigarh Municipal Corporation mayor, over a week after the SC verdict.