The step followed the resignations of three Aam Aadmi Party councillors – Punam Devi, Neha Musawat, and Gurcharan Kala – in Chandigarh who joined the BJP last night.
BJP’s Manoj Sonkar resigned as Chandigarh Mayor on Sunday night, a day before the Supreme Court heard a plea alleging irregularities in the recently held mayoral polls.
The step followed the resignations of three Aam Aadmi Party councillors – Punam Devi, Neha Musawat, and Gurcharan Kala – in Chandigarh who joined the BJP last night.
The Supreme Court on Monday proposed that the results of the controversial Chandigarh Mayor election will be declared on the basis of present ballot papers instead of ordering a fresh election.
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In the last hearing, the apex court had criticised the way presiding officer Anil Masih had conducted the election in order to favour Sonkar.
The Congress and AAP had accused presiding officer Masih for mayoral elections of defacing ballot papers. A video of Masih, purportedly tampering with eight votes during the counting process on January 30 had also gone viral on social media which was slammed by the Supreme court.
According to presiding officer Masih, during the counting of votes, Manoj Sonkar got 16 votes, Kuldeep Dhalor of the AAP-Congress alliance bagged 12 votes, while eight of the total 36 votes were declared invalid.
BJP president of Chandigarh Jatinder Pal Malhotra said, “The Mayor resigned yesterday afternoon. Aam Aadmi Party and Congress propaganda is out in the open. They are abusing each other in the rest of the country and they are making an alliance in Chandigarh. The Congress workers did not want a Congress Mayor, which is why they cross-voted. To stop AAP’s propaganda, we have resigned…more workers and the councillors of the AAP and Congress will join the BJP soon.”
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