Chandigarh Mayoral poll: Wary parties scramble to keep flock together

Tribune News Service

Sandeep Rana

Chandigarh, January 12

Wary of councillors switching sides or indulging in cross-voting in favour of rival candidates, both BJP and AAP are on their way to moving councillors to safe places in states ruled by respective parties.

After nominations, the BJP asked it councillors to shift to Ambala, but some of them refused. Senior party leaders will now hold a meeting and take a call tomorrow morning. The AAP is learnt to have taken its councillors to Ropar in Punjab. Sources said they left in a bus late this evening.

The councillors are likely to return on January 16 evening or the morning of January 17, the day of polling. The mayoral candidates are elected by councillors through secret ballot in the Municipal Corporation House, leaving chances of cross-voting.

Leaders say the main concern for both parties is the Mayor’s post. Soon after the BJP announced first-time councillor Anup Gupta as its candidate, there were murmurs of cross-voting by fellow councillors. Similarly, the AAP, which announced Jasbir Singh Laddi as its candidate, wants to ensure the ruling party gets none of its votes.

Meanwhile, a Congress leader said they were earlier getting offers to file nomination papers and would now get calls for vote. “If there is pressure on us, we will also shift our councillors to an outstation location. Joining the ongoing Bharat Jodo Yatra may be an option,” said a Congress leader.

This is not the first time political parties have shifted their councillors to other states.

In a bid to keep its flock together, amid fears of poaching by rival parties ahead of the last mayoral polls in January 2022, the BJP had taken its newly elected councillors to Shimla. Even the Congress had shifted its councillors to Jaipur and AAP to Delhi over fears of being ‘lured’ by the rivals.

Interestingly, a day after last elections, Congress councillor Harpreet Kaur Babla had joined hands with the BJP, impacting the Mayor’s poll, while another Congress councillor Gurcharan Jit Singh Kala had switched over to the BJP in June.

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