Chandigarh News / BJP wins Chandigarh Mayor election, shock to Congress and AAP alliance

Chandigarh Mayor Election: Mayor election was held in Chandigarh today i.e. on Tuesday, in which BJP won. Manoj Sonkar has been elected the new Mayor of Chandigarh. He defeated Kuldeep Kumar of Aam Aadmi Party. BJP got 16 votes while India Alliance got 12 votes. 8 votes have been cancelled. The votes that were canceled were from India Alliance parties Congress and Aam Aadmi Party. India alliance had a strength of 20, they got only 12 votes and 8 votes were cancelled. Aam Aadmi Party and Congress are alleging that the presiding officer did not allow the agent to come forward during the counting and during this he made some markings with a pen, after which the votes were cancelled.

AAP and Congress councilors are accusing BJP of colluding with the presiding officer to get the votes cancelled. They say that when the presenting officer opened the ballot box, he did not allow the agent of the India Airlines mayoral candidate to come forward and due to this his votes were tampered with, they were cancelled.

First fight before general elections

Let us tell you that this was the first clash between NDA and India Bloc before the general elections. This election took place amidst tight security. Three-tier barricades were installed for the security of Chandigarh Municipal Corporation. Triple layer security arrangements were made around the Municipal Corporation building. 800 soldiers were deployed during the elections. 600 personnel of Chandigarh Police, 100,100 personnel of ITPB and Rapid Action Force were deployed.

Earlier this election was to be held on January 18, but the Chandigarh administration had postponed it till February 6 due to the illness of Presiding Officer Anil Masih. However, Congress and AAP councilors opposed this move. In the 35-member Municipal Corporation House, AAP and Congress alliance together had 20 votes, which were posing a tough challenge to BJP's 15 votes. This includes additional votes of 14 councilors and MP Kirron Kher.

The Punjab and Haryana High Court, in its January 24 order, had directed the Chandigarh administration to conduct mayor elections today. The court stressed the need for free and fair elections. The AAP-Congress alliance had strategically nominated candidates for various posts. Kuldeep Kumar was contesting for the post of Mayor from Aam Aadmi Party, while Congress fielded candidates for Senior Deputy Mayor and Deputy Mayor.

The AAP-Congress alliance wanted to break the eight-year rule of the BJP. Congress did not participate in the voting in 2022 and 2023. BJP had won in those elections. The election process for the post of Mayor is conducted through secret ballot. In this election, the mayor's seat was reserved for the Scheduled Caste category. For the post of Senior Deputy Mayor, Kuljeet Sandhu of BJP was contesting against Gurpreet Singh Gabi of Congress, while for the post of Deputy Mayor, there was a contest between Rajinder Sharma of BJP and Nirmala Devi of Congress.