AAP councillors challenge Chandigarh mayoral poll in High Court

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, January 17

Anju Katyal of the Aam Aadmi Party and two other councillors today moved the Punjab and Haryana High Court for declaring the election results for Chandigarh Mayor’s post illegal. Directions were also sought to the State Election Commissioner, Municipal Corporation, and other official respondents to hold fresh elections to the Mayor’s post.

‘Political atrocities’

Katyal, Prem Lata and Ram Chander Yadav submitted that their petition pointed out “various political atrocities openly carried out at the behest of ruling political party bigwigs in Chandigarh”.

Katyal, Prem Lata and Ram Chander Yadav submitted that their petition pointed out “various political atrocities openly carried out at the behest of ruling political party bigwigs in Chandigarh”. Going into the background of the matter, the petitioners submitted that AAP secured 14 seats and became the largest party in the elections. But the result did not go down well with the Bharatiya Janata Party, in “power in the Municipal Corporation in the last elections”.

The petitioners alleged that the party started indulging in horse-trading, but miserably failed to win any candidate from among the AAP councillors. “After being frustrated, BJP councillors started indulging in other methods to alter the results in their favour, which included putting undue pressure on the authorities of the Chandigarh Administration and trying to bully the election results”.

The petition added that one of the petitioners, during the counting process, learnt about one ballot slip torn at the left bottom corner. The “defect” was immediately “objected to” by the petitioners and other AAP councillors before the presiding officer, who happened to be an elected BJP councillor himself. Upon counting of all 28 polled votes, eight votes were kept out of counting by the presiding officer for ‘defects’.

“AAP had clearly won with a margin of two votes, 11 votes falling into the kitty of petitioner Katyal of the AAP and nine to the BJP candidate. The entire election process had been videographed and from the videography, it is clearly visible that the prescribed authority had firstly taken into account the valid 28 votes and kept the defective votes aside, which were eight in number and had already been objected to by representatives of AAP as well as the BJP…”

The petitioners added that the presiding officer and the prescribed authority-cum-Divisional Commissioner started to play another trick by arbitrarily starting to reconsider the eight ballot votes from the cancelled/rejected lot, which was totally uncalled for. The presiding officer even proceeded to declare the torn/mutilated voter slip cast to the BJP candidate as good for counting.

The counting continued and the final tally headed for a tie with 14 votes each, even after counting the defective/torn voter slip cast to the BJP candidate. The presiding officer, himself an elected BJP councillor, started playing otherwise by picking one ballot slip/vote cast in favour of the petitioner to cite a mark on its backside without showing it. Visibly under pressure from BJP quarters, the respondents immediately declared the vote/ballot slip in favour of the petitioner as ‘cancelled’. The BJP candidate was suddenly declared elected with a 14-13 margin to the utmost shock and surprise of petitioner, other members of the House and the public at large. The petition will come up for hearing on January 19.

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