Bharatiya Janata Party’s Sarabjit Kaur Dhillon was on Saturday elected the new Mayor of Chandigarh Municipal Corporation after she defeated Aam Aadmi Party’s Anju Katyal by one vote.
Ms. Kaur secured 14 votes while Ms. Katyal got 13 votes. One vote was declared invalid.
28 members voted
In the 35-member House of the MC, a total of 28 members voted. The Congress’s seven members and one member of the Shiromani Akali Dal abstained from voting. In the Chandigarh MC, there are 35 councillors while the Member of Parliament from Chandigarh, who is an ex officio member in the municipal corporation, also has a voting right.
Soon after the results, AAP councillors created a ruckus in the House, following which the police had to intervene.
The Chandigarh MC election results declared on December 27 threw up a hung House as no single party secured a clear majority of 19 seats. AAP had emerged as the single largest party by winning 14 wards. The ruling BJP won 12 seats. The Congress won eight seats while the SAD secured one. Later Harpreet Kaur Babla, from the Congress, joined the BJP, taking the party’s seats to 13.
AAP’s Punjab and Chandigarh affairs in-charge Jarnail Singh accused the BJP of murdering democracy. He said that in the Chandigarh civic body elections, the city residents had voted the maximum number of 14 seats for AAP. He said the election for the Mayor of Chandigarh clearly showed that there was a clandestine understanding between the BJP and the Congress to defeat AAP.
