BJP-SAD puts trust in Arun Sood

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, January 2

Finally, after several rounds of meetings by Union Health Minister JP Nadda, national secretaries and the Chandigarh in-charge of the BJP, the BJP-SAD alliance today announced the names of candidates for the mayoral elections. But due to infighting in the local BJP unit, the party declared only the names of candidates for the post of Mayor and Senior Deputy Mayor. The BJP’s Chandigarh in-charge, Prabhat Jha, announced the name of Arun Sood for the Mayor’s post and Davesh Moudgil for the post of Senior Deputy Mayor.

As there was no consensus among different camps of the BJP and the SAD over the post of Deputy Mayor, the alliance decided to announce the candidate for this post tomorrow. It is probably for the first time that the BJP has declared only two names for the mayoral elections.

Arun Sood, who is the leader of the Opposition in the MC, is from the BJP president Sanjay Tandon camp while Davesh Moudgil is from the former MP Satya Pal Jain camp.

At the press conference, all senior leaders of the BJP, including its president Sanjay Tandon, MP Kirron Kher, former MP Satya Pal Jain and former Union Minister Harmohan Dhawan, were present.

Chandigarh BJP in-charge Prabhat Jha said the party would try to win all three mayoral posts. The party had given the responsibility to all senior leaders to ensure the party’s victory, he said. On cross voting, he said nobody was above the party and this time all party councillors would vote for the party candidates. 

BJP to offer post to SAD

Left with no other option, the BJP will now offer the deputy mayor’s post to SAD councillor Hardeep Singh. The SAD has two councillors, Harjinder Kaur and Hardeep Singh.

Senior most councillor turns down deputy mayor post offer 

Sources revealed that senior most councillor of the BJP Deshraj Gupta, who was eyeing the Mayor’s post, was offered the post of deputy mayor. But Gupta turned down the offer and conveyed to the party leaders that he would not contest this post. The sources said earlier, a similar offer was also made to councillor Saurabh Joshi, who was also front runner for the post of mayoral candidature. He also declined the offer. The two councillors, along with five more from the BJP-SAD alliance, had opposed Arun Sood’s name for the Mayor’s post. 

No ticket for turncoats 

In the past two years, four Congress councillors, Rana Kashmiri Devi, Raj Bala Malik, Sat Parkash Aggarwal and Satish Kainth, have joined the BJP. But in Saturday’s announcement, the BJP gave no representation to these councillors in the mayoral polls.