Chandigarh: BJP candidate Manoj Sonkar Tuesday defeated AAP’s Kuldeep Kumar, who was fielded as part of an alliance with the Congress, to win the post of mayor in the Chandigarh mayoral polls.
Sonkar polled 16 votes while Kumar secured 12. Eight votes were declared invalid.
Councillors of INDIA bloc parties AAP and Congress protested as soon as the results were announced. From Delhi, AAP convener Arvind Kejriwal accused the BJP of “cheating”.
The newly elected mayor will hold the elections to the posts of senior deputy mayor and deputy mayor.
As part of the alliance, the AAP was contesting for the mayor’s post while the Congress has fielded candidates for senior deputy mayor and deputy mayor.
The polls, being held following the directions of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, assume significance with opposition INDIA bloc members Congress and AAP joining hands, even though they are yet to agree on seat-sharing in Punjab.
The BJP has 14 councillors in the 35-member Chandigarh Municipal Corporation. The AAP has 13 councillors and the Congress seven. The Shiromani Akali Dal has one councillor.
In a post on ‘X’, Kejriwal expressed “serious concern” over the “cheating” carried out in broad daylight.
“If these people can stoop to this level in a mayoral poll, they can go to any extent in the national elections,” the Delhi chief minister said in an apparent reference to the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.
“This is very worrying,” he said.
Tight security arrangements are in place for the mayoral polls.
Around 700 police personnel, along with those from paramilitary forces, have been deployed for maintaining law and order during the election at the municipal corporation building, officials said.
The polls were originally scheduled for January 18 but were deferred to February 6 by the Chandigarh administration after the presiding officer fell ill. The administration had at that time also said the polls were postponed after assessing the law-and-order situation.
The administration’s order deferring the polls had triggered protests by Congress and AAP councillors.
Kuldeep Kumar had challenged the Chandigarh deputy commissioner’s order to defer the elections in the high court.
In its January 24 order, the high court directed the Chandigarh administration to hold the mayoral polls at 10 am on January 30. It also quashed the administration’s January 18 order postponing the elections while holding it “unreasonable, unjustified and arbitrary”.
The high court had also directed that the councillors who come to cast their votes shall not be accompanied by any supporters or security personnel belonging to any other state.
The Chandigarh Police will ensure security to the councillors, the court had said.
The police had also been asked to ensure that no ruckus or untoward incident takes place on or around the civic body premises during or after the election process.
Elections to the three posts are held every year during the House’s five-year term. The Congress had abstained from voting in 2022 and 2023, leading to the BJP’s victory in the polls.
The election of the mayor is done through secret ballots.
For this year’s elections — the third for this term — the mayor’s seat has been reserved for the Scheduled Caste category.
PTI