MP Manish Tewari moves Bill seeking directly‑elected Mayor with 5‑year tenure for Chandigarh

Chandigarh MP Manish Tewari on Friday introduced a comprehensive amendment Bill in the Lok Sabha seeking to give Chandigarh a directly elected Mayor, Senior Deputy Mayor and Deputy Mayor with a fixed five-year tenure — ending the city’s unique and controversial system of electing its civic leadership for just one year.

The Bill also proposes far-reaching reforms to shift major governance powers from the UT Administrator to the elected civic body, a move pitched as restoring democratic accountability.

Introducing the Punjab Municipal Corporation Law (Extension to Chandigarh) Amendment Bill, 2025, Tewari said the current system — where the Mayor and their deputies are elected every year by Municipal Corporation councillors — results in unstable leadership, political manoeuvring and disruption of long-term governance.

The Bill seeks to amend the parent law that governs the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation (MC), which has followed this one-year model since its inception in May 1994.

According to the Bill, a copy of which Tewari shared with The Tribune, the three top civic offices would be directly elected by all electors of the Chandigarh parliamentary constituency and hold office for five years, co-terminus with the term of the Municipal Corporation. The proposal brings Chandigarh in line with the rest of the country, where Mayors hold five-year terms under the Punjab Municipal Corporation Act, 1976, from which the city’s municipal law was originally derived.

The amendment also seeks sweeping structural changes: replacing the Administrator’s overriding authority with that of a “duly elected Mayor,” bringing all officers of the Chandigarh Administration — except those handling law and order — under a “Mayor-in-Council,” and introducing an anti-defection provision for councillors and the top three civic offices on the lines of the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution.

The Bill states that the existing annual election process “subverts the integrity of the democratic process,” creates discontinuity in policy implementation and wastes public funds. Frequent leadership changes, it notes, disrupt long-term projects and hinder civic administration. The proposed reforms aim to ensure “administrative continuity, better execution of municipal projects, and more effective governance for the residents of Chandigarh.”

Under the Bill, the Mayor-in-Council will take decisions collectively, with a consensus-first approach and a fallback 2:1 majority mechanism if consensus fails. Major matters would then be placed before the full House of elected councillors for final approval.

Significantly, the proposed law also shifts governance powers: all civil functions of the UT, except law and order, would fall under the jurisdiction of the elected Mayor. The Annual Confidential Reports of all UT officers (barring those in law and order) would also be written by the Mayor and the two deputies, thereby placing the administration largely under elected oversight for the first time in the city’s history.

Tewari said the amendment is essential for strengthening urban local democracy, decentralisation and the autonomy of the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation — long a point of contention as the UT has traditionally been run through the Administrator with limited powers devolved to the civic body.