Chandigarh civic body all set to pick Mayor’s deputies today

Sandeep Rana

Chandigarh, March 3

After a delay of two months due to the ongoing politics in the Municipal Corporation, the elections to the posts of Senior Deputy Mayor and Deputy Mayor are finally set to be held tomorrow.

Councillors Kuljit Singh and Rajinder Sharma, from the BJP, are pitted against Congress councillors and India bloc nominees Gurpreet Singh Gabi and Nirmala Devi for the posts of Senior Deputy Mayor and Deputy Mayor, respectively. The parties had field nominations again following the directions of the Punjab and Haryana High Court.

The elections to the two posts were earlier scheduled to be held on February 27, but a day before the elections, Mayor Kuldeep Kumar Dhalor had stated that he could not be present in the House as presiding officer because he was out of station to see his ailing sister. Subsequently, the court had stayed the polls and ordered that the elections be held on March 4.

With three AAP councillors defected to the BJP recently, the saffron party has a total of 18 votes in the MC House (17 councillors and ex-officio member, i.e. MP). The AAP-Congress alliance has 17 votes. Last time, the lone SAD councillor voted for the BJP, but this time, the party is undecided so far.

Meanwhile, all BJP councillors have come back from Morni. The three AAP councillors, who had been staying at some undisclosed location, too, have returned. The councillors of AAP and the Congress are already in the city.

After the BJP’s Manoj Sonkar was declared the winner to the post of Mayor after eight votes, which were polled in favour of alliance candidate Kuldeep Kumar Dhalor (Tita), were wrongly declared invalid by presiding officer Anil Masih, the Opposition councillors had boycotted the elections to the two posts. Since, the court has set aside the Mayor’s poll result and declared Tita the winner, the two elections are to being conducted again. HS Lucky, city Congress president, said, “Though we are short of one vote, anything can happen during secret voting.”

Jatinder Pal Malhotra, president, city BJP, said, “We have the numbers and are surely going to win.”

Anything can happen in secret voting

Though we are short of one vote, anything can happen during secret voting. — HS Lucky, city Congress president

We have numbers to win elections

We have the numbers and are surely going to win. — Jatinder Pal Malhotra, president, city BJP