BJP pulls it off, wrests Mayor seat from AAP-Cong

In a dramatic political twist, the AAP-Congress alliance suffered a shocking defeat in the mayoral elections, despite having a clear majority with 19 councillors and vote of MP Manish Tewari in the 35-member MC House.

Amid allegations of horse-trading, internal discord and strategic missteps by the alliance, the BJP won the Mayor’s seat today. Its candidate Harpreet Kaur Babla won with 19 votes against Congress-AAP candidate Prem Late, who polled 17 votes. Three councillors defied party lines, tilting the balance in the BJP’s favour.

Party insiders said trouble deepened when AAP chose to ignore internal concerns and fielded Prem Lata as its mayoral candidate, instead of Jaswinder Kaur or Anju Katyal. However, AAP leaders asserted there was no dissidence within the party.

Sources revealed that the BJP had been in touch with certain Congress councillors, even after the defection of Councillor Gurbax Rawat to the saffron party. Sensing trouble, the Congress swiftly moved its councillors out of the city to prevent further poaching. AAP also moved its councillors to Ropar. However, these last-minute damage-control efforts proved futile today. A former BJP Mayor, Arun Sood, and a turncoat, Devinder Singh Babla, husband of Mayor Harpreet Kaur Babla, reportedly spearheaded the BJP strategy to win the poll.

The political upset happened in the backdrop of the Congress and AAP engaging in a war of words over the recently held mayoral elections in Punjab and the former INDIA bloc partners fighting the Delhi Assembly elections separately.

Meanwhile, MP Manish Tewari tweeted: “Horse traders had been at work. What they still don’t understand is that people of Chandigarh severely frown upon political immorality.” He added: “I wish it was 3 out of 3 and not two out of three in the elections for the Mayor, Senior Deputy Mayor and Deputy Mayor. Those who did not respect the coalition Dharma on either side should be identified and dealt with severely. This was the sense of the house after a joint meeting of the Alliance Councillors and the respective leadership’s”.

Meanwhile, the BJP leaders termed the allegations of horse-trading as baseless accusations. City BJP president Jatinder Pal Malhotra refuted the allegations.

Senior DY Mayor

Will work for city development

“Rising above the political affiliations, we will work with the Mayor for the city’s development and also work on pending projects.” — Jasbir Singh Bunty

Deputy Mayor

Need to get MC out of fiscal crisis

“We will work together for the betterment of the city and to bring the MC out of financial crisis.”

— Taruna Mehta