BJP leaders Kuljeet Sandhu and Rajinder Sharma on Monday won the posts of senior deputy mayor and deputy mayor of the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation, respectively, defeating the Congress candidates who were backed by the AAP.
For the post of senior deputy mayor, BJP’s Kuljeet Sandhu defeated Congress’ Gurpreet Gabi. While Sandhu polled 19 votes, Gabi got 16, and one vote was declared invalid.
Rajinder Sharma of the BJP defeated Congress’ Nirmala Devi to win the deputy mayor’s post. The winning candidate secured 19 votes of the total 36 polled.
The BJP had fielded the same set of candidates last time and they had won then too.
On February 20, the Supreme Court had declared Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) councillor Kuldeep Kumar as the new mayor of the corporation after it overturned the result of the January 30 mayoral poll in which BJP candidate Manoj Sonkar had emerged the winner.
Its judgment had come on allegations of tampering with ballots during the January mayoral polls. As the mayor is the presiding officer for the elections to the posts of senior deputy mayor and deputy mayor, the polls were held again on Monday after the change in the mayoral post following the court’s judgment.
In the 35-member municipal House, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has 17 councillors. The number of BJP’s strength increased from 14 to 17 after three AAP councillors switched over to it on February 19.
The AAP has 10 members while the Congress has seven. The Shiromani Akali Dal has one councillor.
The Chandigarh administration on Tuesday had placed a formal schedule regarding the polling for the posts of senior deputy mayor and deputy mayor before the Punjab and Haryana High Court.
Congress councillors Gabi and Devi had moved the high court, challenging the notification of the Chandigarh deputy commissioner for conducting the polls for these posts on February 27.
Then the Union territory administration withdrew its earlier notification and issued the fresh notification for holding the poll on March 4.