M A I N   N E W S

Cong largest party in Chandigarh civic poll
Aarti Kapur
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, December 19
Winning 11 seats, the Congress emerged as the single largest party in the local Municipal Corporation elections results for which were declared here today.

The BJP-SAD combine bagged 12 seats out of which 10 were captured by the former. The alliance is still one short of the clear majority among the directly elected councillors. Clearly, the list of the nine nominated councillors will hold the key to the election of the city mayor.

The BSP bagged two seats. Gurcharan Das Kala, a BJP rebel, won as an independent candidate. Surprisingly, the Congress won 11 seats despite anti-incumbency factor and the Anna Hazare wave. The heaviest voter turnout of 59 per cent shows an anti-power group voting pattern. The results have, however, proved to be different.

Devinder Babla, a close confidant of the local member of Parliament Pawan Kumar Bansal was among the prominent losers. Interestingly, he was contesting from the ward where Bansal cast his vote. Kamlesh and Anu Chatrath, both former Mayors, Chandermukhi and H.S.Lucky were the other major upsets the Congress suffered. The BJP, too, witnessed some surprise defeats like those of Ram Lal, Anil Dubey, Raj Kumari Mishra and Satinder Dhawan, wife of a former member of Parliament and a former councillor.

Surprisingly, 16 out of the 26 winners were fresh faces. These are: Raj Bala Malik (Congress), Saurabh Joshi (BJP), Arun Sood (BJP) and Gurbax Rawat (Congress) and Kashmiri Devi, mother of a former councillor Vijay Singh Rana.