Political parties gear up for MC poll : The Tribune India

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Battle of wards

Political parties gear up for MC poll

JALANDHAR: With just a few days left for the municipal elections to be held in the state, political parties have geared up in the city to fight the “battle of wards”.

Political parties gear up for MC poll


Rachna Khaira

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, November 16

With just a few days left for the municipal elections to be held in the state, political parties have geared up in the city to fight the “battle of wards”.

While the Congress is struggling hard to get all its newly elected MLAs united to face the crusade jointly, there seems to be no respite, as everyone seemed to be furious on the state government over the new delimitation plan. Also, they are facing a stiff opposition from their own workers whom they are finding difficult to accommodate in allotting the party ticket to contest the elections.

The BJP’s district unit is only seen active in the field accusing the Congress government of making procedural lapses in the notification of the new delimitation plans, the SAD seemed to have lost interest to contest elections this time.

Even though, it’s been eight months since the Assembly elections took place in the state, the SAD district unit is lying suspended till date. Also, there seems to be no end between the cold war that erupted between the SAD’s former district president (Urban) Gurcharan Singh Channi and SAD’s former MLA Sarabjit Singh Makkar. Both are expected to again lock horns over the president’s post in the urban area.

When asked, the newly appointed secretary general of the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa said soon the district units would be formed who would further make election committees to choose party candidates.

Also, controversy is expected to brew between the SAD and BJP over the distribution of seats. Though the Municipal Corporation was formed in 1977, the elections could not be held until 1991 due to terrorism that gripped the state.

In 1991, municipal elections were held after 20 years in Jalandhar and SAD and BJP contested the election separately. During that time, Punjab’s former Local Bodies Minister Manoranjan Kalia and SAD leader Arjun Singh decided the seat sharing for the municipal elections held that year.

Unlike the SAD that has a majority of its vote bank in rural Punjab, the BJP has its vote bank in urban areas. Due to this, the BJP has always demanded a lion’s share in seats in every municipal election. Though both alliance parties were contesting on 63:35 seat sharing basis, this time perturbed over the disastrous performance of the SAD-BJP alliance in the assembly elections, the BJP has demanded the seat sharing to be done on 80:20 basis.

According to BJP’s district president Ramesh Sharma, since the wards have gone from 60 to 80 in the city, the BJP should be given a major share as the SAD has a very few percentage of voters in the urban area. Also, the party is expected to launch over 60 per cent new faces which will mostly include women.

“Though we are planning to launch new faces this time, they will not be parachute candidates. We will have faces from our own workers’ families who are aware about the elections duties and the duties of a councillor,” said Sharma.

Manoranjan Kalia stated that the seat sharing would be decided at the national level. He said only after the formation of the screening committee, the candidates would be finalised to fight the “battle of wards”.

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