Ambala Zila Parishad chairperson loses trust vote

Members of Ambala Zila Parishad unseated Chairperson Rajesh Kumar Laddi by a passing no-confidence motion against him on Tuesday. The chairperson lost the motion by 11 votes.

There are 15 members of the Zila Parishad and minimum 10 votes were required against the chairperson to unseat him. Similarly, voting was also conducted against vice-chairperson Karnail Singh but he managed to save his seat as nine persons voted against him against the required figure of 10 votes.

In 2022, Rajesh Kumar had won the election from Ward1 as an Independent candidate, but joined the BJP after the election. However, just before the Assembly elections, he switched to the Congress.

The Zila Parishad members claimed that they were not happy with the functioning of the chairperson and a week ago submitted a request for the no-confidence meeting against him.

Makhan Singh Lobana, a Zila Parishad member from Ward 9, said, “The voting went off smoothly and 11 members have voted against the chairperson. He was not able to get the work done and the members were not happy with his functioning. For Vice- Chairperson, nine voted against him and six votes went in his favour due to which he managed to save his post. The Deputy Commissioner will fix the next date of meeting to elect the new chairperson.”

Another Zila Parishad member said, “A majority of the members were against the chairperson because he didn’t get any development work done in the wards of the members. He has lost the post and soon the new Chairperson will be elected.”

Rajesh Kumar Laddi, after losing the post, said, “Everything was going fine but just because I joined the Congress and the BJP lost in three Assembly segments of Ambala, under the pressure of the government the no-confidence motion was conducted. Even today it would have gone into my favour but the administration instead of going for secrete voting adopted the hand-raising voting procedure, which was not right.”

“While four votes went in my favour, two other members would have voted for me if the secret voting was done. The members didn’t want to go against the government openly. The right procedure was not adopted. I will discuss the issue with my supporters and take the further call. I am also planning to move court to challenge the procedure adopted for voting today”, he added.