Trouble deepens in Chandigarh Congress

Sandeep Rana

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, January 1

Infighting in the city Congress came into the open today when local party president Subhash Chawla and former leader of Opposition Devinder Singh Babla nearly came to blows in the visitors’ gallery of the Municipal Corporation building during the oath-taking ceremony of the new councillors.

Ex-councillor Babla, whose wife is the councillor from a ward reserved for women this time, told Chandigarh Tribune that either Chawla would remain in the party or him and his supporters.

The incident happened when Congress leaders were sitting in the visitors’ gallery. They had heated arguments when Babla questioned the party chief for not “responding to his calls and not meeting him.” Amid commotion, they came out walking from the gallery.

“Babla shouldered me and also abused me as I was walking. He must have some old grudge,” alleged Chawla.

Some said Babla was not invited to a “meeting” held before the oath-taking ceremony today. “It was not a meeting. The councillors and I met our leader Pawan Bansal as a courtesy call,” claimed Chawla.

Denying having abused or pushed Chawla, Babla, alleged, “He has not been in touch with us after the names for ticket were announced. He does not meet us or pick our calls. He only campaigned for his son. He is dividing the party. Now, either we remain in the party or him. We cannot work under him.”

On talks of him joining the BJP, Babla said, “Both the BJP and AAP are contacting me for support. It’s but natural as no party has got a majority to have its Mayor. Even I am asking them to support our party. We cannot sit idle like him (Chawla), we have to strategise and seek support of the others.”

Chawla denied the allegations levelled by the former leader of the Opposition.

Long list of Cong defectors

The city Congress is already facing troubles — its performance is declining and it has failed to keep its flock together. In fact, the top two city AAP leaders are former Congress men. Pradeep Chhabra, former city Congress president, is now the AAP co-in-charge.

Many among 14 elected AAP councillors are the congress men, who are Chhabra loyalists.

Former Congress councillor Chandermukhi Sharma was made the chairman of the AAP election campaign committee. During the MC poll, the Congress had suffered another setback when its sitting councillor Sheela Devi joined the BJP after she was denied ticket. Earlier, Congress general secretary Sandeep Bharadwaj had also joined AAP.

After the party stood third in the MC poll, winning only eight seats out of a total of 35 seats, infighting has grown in the party. Many leaders in the party feel the seats which the Congress should have won had gone to AAP due to the party “leadership’s failure”. While AAP got a major of 14 seats, the BJP won on 12 seats.

35 councillors take oath

Chandigarh: All 35 newly-elected councillors were administered the oath by DC Vinay Pratap Singh at the MC office on Saturday. Of them, 14 are from AAP, 12 from the BJP, eight are from the Congress and one is from SAD. Eighteen councillors read the oath in Hindi, while 12 preferred Punjabi and five opted for English. A few of them fumbled while reading the oath. The DC had to stop them and asked them to read again as per the oath. He also had to read alongwith some of them. Many councillors, who were not wearing masks, were requested to wear one by the DC in view of increasing Covid cases. tns