Race for new city Mayor begins

CHANDIGARH: Who will be the city’s next Mayor? With the current Mayor Asha Kumari Jaswal’s one-year term ending on December 31, different candidates from the BJP are eyeing the post, depicting factionalism in the party. Former Mayor Arun Sood and former Senior Deputy Mayor Davesh Moudgil are among the top contenders for the coveted post, which is open for a general category candidate this time. Last year, the post was reserved for a woman candidate.

Arun Sood (L) and Davesh Moudgil

Sandeep Rana

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, December 14

Who will be the city’s next Mayor? With the current Mayor Asha Kumari Jaswal’s one-year term ending on December 31, different candidates from the BJP are eyeing the post, depicting factionalism in the party.

Former Mayor Arun Sood and former Senior Deputy Mayor Davesh Moudgil are among the top contenders for the coveted post, which is open for a general category candidate this time. Last year, the post was reserved for a woman candidate.

Sood and Moudgil belong to different factions of the BJP. Sood is said to be from the camp of Sanjay Tandon, the party’s city unit president, while Moudgil is a close aide of former MP Satypal Jain and also has the ‘blessings’ of local MP Kirron Kher.

In case there is no consensus on the name of either of the two, the incumbent senior Deputy Mayor, Rajesh Gupta, aka Bittu, who is the senior-most party councillor, may emerge as the dark horse. Bittu is considered a neutral candidate in the party.

Other councillors who could be in the fray are Shakti Parkash Devshali, Ravi Kant Sharma and Vinod Aggarwal.

City BJP president Sanjay Tandon said, “The party is yet to decide the candidate for the post. Whoever is nominated to the post will be supported by all.”

“It is up to the party to nominate candidate for the post. I will follow the party line,” said Sood, who had been the Mayor before Jaswal.

Moudgil said, “I am a committed solider of the party. I shoulder every responsibility the party gives me. If given a chance, I will give my best as Mayor too. Anyway, I will stand for the candidate the party picks for the post.”

The Congress too has not decided its candidate for the top MC post and is ‘determined’ to support an Independent candidate or a BJP rebel, if any.

Senior Congress councillor Devinder Singh Babla said, “We will hold a meeting, which will be attended by senior leaders like Pawan Bansal, to decide the party’s choice for the post.”

Along with the Mayor’s election, Senior Deputy Mayor and Deputy Mayor will also be elected in January. The dates of election meeting and nominations are yet to be decided.

Number game

There are a total of 26 elected councillors in the MC House. Of these, 21 are from the BJP-SAD alliance and four from the Congress. Besides, there is an Independent councillor. The local MP also has a vote in the MC House.

As of now, 9 nominated councillors can’t vote

Nine nominated councillors in the MC House used to have a right to vote in the mayoral elections and were often the game changers in the Mayoral elections. Their right was annulled by the High Court recently. The UT Administration and subsequently, nominated councillors have approached the apex court against the order. As of now, it will be the first mayoral election in the city’s history when nominated councillors will not have the right to vote. With the nominated councillors losing the right to elect, it will not be a smooth sailing for the ruling BJP in case there is infighting. In the past, political parties started wooing nominated councillors in run-up to the mayoral elections.