History rewritten, Kharar Municipal Council repeats 1981

History was rewritten in Kharar, a subdivisional headquarter of Mohali district, some 14-km from Chandigarh, when the incumbent Municipal Council (MC) president Jaspreet Kaur Longia was removed from her post through a no-confidence motion on Friday.

The development assumes significance as it was for the second time in the history of the 127-year-old civic body, which was established way back in 1898, that a no-confidence motion was passed against the MC chief.

In 1981, the then MC president Joginder Nath Kaushik, a leading advocate and Congress leader, was ousted from the post by no-confidence motion. At that time, 11 councillors in the House of 16, including 12 elected and four co-opted (read nominated), had joined hands to show Kaushik the door despite the fact that he owed allegiance to the Congress, which was ruling the state at that time.

“After a long wait of almost two months, we had to move the High Court to make Kaushik leave and pave the way for electing Swaran Singh Heera as the new MC president in his place. The Congress government of that time, led by then Chief Minister Darbara Singh, on the insistence of the then Kharar Congress MLA Jagat Singh, refused to remove Kaushik from the MC top post despite a no-confidence motion having been passed against him,” said a councillor of that time, who had led the group of Opposition councillors against Kaushik, while talking to The Tribune.

Pointing out the difference between the two no-confidence motions passed in the history of Kharar MC, he said the president owing allegiance to the Congress, who was also a leading lawyer, was removed from the post in 1981 despite all the might of the powers-that-be. This time, the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) was instrumental in the ouster of MC chief owing allegiance to the Opposition Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), who had also lost majority in the House.

The AAP government, on the insistence of party’s young Kharar MLA Anmol Gagan Maan, had been trying to wrest control over the Kharar MC ever since it had been voted to power in 2022. It took more than three years for the first-timer Punjabi singer-turned-legislator to free the civic body of the SAD rule. Kharar was the only civic body in the state, which had the SAD’s president.

With the current five-year term of the MC scheduled to end in February next, the AAP regime has limited time of almost eight months left to rule the civic body and then prepare a ground for winning the next MC general election, which will be due thereafter.

As per the provisions of the Punjab Municipal Act, the no-confidence motion passed by the MC with two-thirds majority in the House of 27 councillors will be approved by the Local Government Department, in all probability on Monday. The new MC president will be elected by calling a special House meeting after issuing a 72-hour agenda/notice to the councillors.

Interestingly, the AAP had won a single seat in the 27-member House during the 2021 MC election, which had not given a clear majority to any other party as well. The Congress emerged as the single largest party with 10 councillors, followed by SAD and Independents eight each.

However, in September 2022, the ruling party managed defection in the Opposition and Independents by wooing eight Congress, six Independents and one SAD councillor to its fold. This gave a majority to AAP in the MC House. However, to remove the incumbent president, it required a two-thirds majority, which it could not manage till recently.

On May 5, a group of 18 councillors, owing allegiance to AAP, moved a requisition before the MC Executive Officer to call a special meeting of the House for tabling a no-confidence motion against the incumbent president Longia, submitting that they have lost confidence in her leadership.

Since then, the group of 18 councillors was “safely” kept at an undisclosed destination by the ruling party and was brought under tight security in a Volvo bus minutes before the Friday’s meeting scheduled for11 am.

Longia, who could manage to muster support of only two councillors, faced a drubbing after 18 councillors, supported by two MLAs — Anmol from Kharar and Charanjit Singh from Chamkaur Sahib — who were ex-officio members of the MC, voted for the no-confidence motion by show of hands at the special MC House meeting.

Senior government officials said the proceedings of the no-confidence motion will be approved on Monday and thereafter, the MC House will be at liberty to elect its new president, which will be notified in due course of time.

Meanwhile, the race has begun for the election of new MC president. Several councilors, owing allegiance to the ruling party, are lobbying hard to become the next city chief. A former MC president is learnt to be the front runner for the top post, the election to which is also likely to be held in the coming week itself.

Kharar MC had produced several leading politicians, including Charanjit Singh Channi, who began his political career as councillor. He became the MC president before rising to the position of Punjab Chief Minister. He is now MP from Jalandhar.