68 newly elected councillors take oath

AMRITSAR: A total of 68 newly elected councillors took oath during the meeting of the House today. Apart from 15 councillors who are said to be supporters of Cabinet Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu, BJP councillor from ward no. 17 Sandhya Sikka and Independent councillor from ward no. 2 Surinder Chaudhry also remained absent.

Newly elected councillors attend the oath-taking ceremony at the MC office.

Charanjit Singh Teja

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, January 23

A total of 68 newly elected councillors took oath during the meeting of the House today.

Apart from 15 councillors who are said to be supporters of Cabinet Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu, BJP councillor from ward no. 17 Sandhya Sikka and Independent councillor from ward no. 2 Surinder Chaudhry also remained absent. Sikka told officials of the MC’s agenda branch that she was on a foreign visit.

The supporters of Sidhu — councillor from ward no. 20 Navdeep Singh, Parminder Singh from ward no. 21, Jaswinder Singh from ward no. 22, Rajinder Singh from ward no. 24, Mandeep Kaur from ward no. 25, Damandeep Singh from ward no. 26, Monica from ward no. 27, Jatinder Singh from ward no. 28, Vijay Madan from ward no 29, Jeet Singh Bhatia from ward no. 30, Rajesh Madan from ward no. 32, Jarnail Singh from ward no. 44, Dalbir Kaur from ward no. 45, Sukhdev Singh from ward no.76 and Salinder Singh Shelly from ward no. 46 — gave the first meeting a miss.

Most of the councillors were from Navjot Singh Sidhu’s constituency (Amritsar East) and have been associated with Sidhu since his BJP days. They had joined the Congress with Sidhu before the Assembly elections.

Damandeep Singh, councillor from ward no. 26, said, “Of the 18 wards in the Amritsar East constituency, 15 councillors won with the support of Navjot Singh Sidhu. We all gathered at a restaurant on the Lawrence road and decided to attend the oath-taking ceremony together .We came to know that Sidhu was not going to attend the ceremony. Later, we got a message on social media that Sidhu was not invited by the government. We unanimously decided that if he is not going, we will also not attend the ceremony. The government and party high command ignored the heavy weight leader. Is he facing such things due to his honesty?”

As per the information Tript Rajinder Singh Bajwa went to Sidhu’s house yesterday evening but Sidhu did not meet him. Jugal Kishore Sharma, president of the district Congress, also met the supporters of Sidhu and asked them to attend the oath-taking ceremony, but they denied.

Meanwhile, other BJP and SAD councillors were present on the occasion. MLA Om Parkash Soni proposed the name of Karamjit Singh Rintu for the post of Mayor. Councillor Mahesh Khanna and Rinku Narula seconded the proposal. MLA Sunil Dutti proposed the name of Raman Bakshi for the post of Senior Deputy Mayor and Sakatar Singh Babbu seconded it. MLA Raj Kumar Verka proposed the name of Younis for Deputy Mayor and it was seconded by councillor Balwinder Singh.

Jaranil Singh Dhot of the BJP said, “The senior leadership will decide the Opposition leader soon.”