Bickering within Solan Congress leads to disqualification of Mayor, former Mayor

Ambika Sharma

Solan, June 12

Internal bickering within the Congress councillors in the Solan Municipal Corporation (MC) has led to disqualification of its Mayor and a former Mayor-cum-councillor reducing them to a minority.

The BJP got an unexpected boost with this development. Despite having merely six councillors in a house of 13, its Deputy Mayor will now hold the Mayor’s charge.

Unexpected boost for BJP

• Both voted against party candidate during the mid-term election of Mayor and Deputy Mayor in Dec 2023
• The BJP got an unexpected boost with this development. Despite having merely six councillors in a house of 13, its Deputy Mayor will now hold the Mayor’s charge

Usha Sharma, Mayor, and Punam Grover, a former Mayor, have been disqualified for defying party directions during the mid-term election of Mayor and Deputy Mayor held in December 2023. Its notification was issued by Principal Secretary, Urban Development, Devesh Kumar, on June 10.

An enquiry report submitted by Deputy Commissioner (DC), Solan, had held the duo guilty of defying party directions while absolving the other two councillors, Abhay Sharma and Rajiv Kaura, in the absence of any evidence.

Usha Sharma had filed her candidature for the Mayor’s post while Punam Grover had seconded it. This was despite the fact that the Congress had nominated Sardar Singh for this post.

The duo have, however, termed it as a conspiracy led by local MLA and minister for Health and Family Welfare DR Shandil and other councillors. They said they would seek legal redressal against this order which they termed as unjust.

“The District Congress Committee had not produced any authorisation letter from the party during the election while it was handed over to the Additional DC after the nomination for the Mayor’s post had been completed. This had put a question mark over the candidature of the official Congress candidates,” alleged Punam Grover.

The Congress leadership had adopted two yardsticks to handle indiscipline among the councillors. No action was taken against four councillors led by Sardar Singh who had moved a no-confidence motion against their Mayor Punam Grover and Deputy Mayor Rajiv Kaura with the help of BJP councillors in October 2022.

The Congress was divided into two factions of four and five councillors despite having the majority of nine councillors. Congress official candidate for the mayoral post, Sardar Singh, who was part of the five-member faction, polled six votes while its candidate for the Deputy Mayor’s post, Sangeeta Thakur, got only five votes. Since local MLA Shandil was also permitted to vote, the group supported by him had six votes in all.

The embarrassing defeat of the official candidates further widened the chasm between the two groups who do not see eye to eye with each other. The disgruntled councillors were merely focussed on setting score amongst themselves while the party fared badly in the Lok Sabha polls leading to the defeat of the party.