Two months on, nominated Chandigarh councillors yet to be named

Sandeep Rana

Chandigarh, February 13

Nearly two months have passed since the formation of the new MC House, which has seen the mayoral polls and approval of the next fiscal’s budget, but the Administration is yet to name nine nominated councillors.

The UT Administration, which said to have received applications for the posts, is yet to decide the names. The UT Administrator approves the names of the nominated councillors who are usually declared before the mayoral polls for the next five years.

According to sources, many of those who are in the reckoning for the posts, have the BJP background. Two former BJP councillors, a former UT Chief Engineer who is close to a senior BJP leader, wife of a senior BJP leader, a developer and an office-bearer of a traders’ union are said to be among the members in the race for the posts.

“It is illegal to have House meetings without nominated councillors. It is against the MC Act which mandates to have them before hand. It is due to infighting of the BJP that the announcement of the list has got delayed,” alleged Pardeep Chhabra, city AAP co-in-charge.

City BJP president Arun Sood said, “AAP is telling a lie. Its leaders should know the announcement of nominated councillors is the prerogative of the UT Administrator.” The city Congress had earlier written to the Administrator stating that the posts are apolitical. If the appointments are made ignoring norms, then the Congress’ recommendations should be considered as it had the highest vote share in the polls. AAP had written that it had maximum seats and the names recommended by it should be nominated as councillors.

About these councillors

Nominated councillors earlier had the voting right in the mayoral polls. They played kingmaker in the mayoral elections. In January 2018, the Punjab and Haryana High Court annulled their voting right. The matter is pending in the Supreme Court. Now, they cannot vote in the polls, but can only be members of the sub-committees and can give suggestions in MC House on issues concerning the city. The nominated councillors don’t get any funds unlike elected councillors who get an annual fund of Rs80 lakh each for ward development. Nominated councillors are supposed to be from diverse professional backgrounds to give their expert advice during House meetings.