Congress dissident bags Solan Mayor’s post

Ambika Sharma

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Solan, December 7

A Congress dissident retained the post of Mayor while the BJP snatched away the Deputy Mayor’s post from the ruling party despite the fact that the latter has a majority of nine councillors and the vote of an MLA.

The official candidates of the Congress — Sardar Singh and Sangeeta Thakur — failed to grab any post despite receiving the vote of Health and Family Welfare Minister DR Shandil, who is the seniormost MLA in the state Cabinet.

The dissident group of the Congress, led by outgoing Mayor Punam Grover, supported their candidate Usha Sharma who won the post of Mayor with 11 votes. She managed to secure the votes of six BJP councillors and one Independent councillor too.

Infighting damaged cong prospects

• The official candidates of the Congress — Sardar Singh and Sangeeta Thakur — failed to grab any post despite receiving the vote of legislator DR Shandil
• The dissident group of the Congress, led by outgoing Mayor Punam Grover, supported their candidate Usha Sharma who won the post of Mayor with 11 votes
• Besides her supporters, she managed to secure the votes of six BJP councillors and one Independent councillor too

Congress official nominee for Mayor’s post Sardar Singh could barely secure six of the 17 votes, including MLA Shandil’s vote. The party’s official nominee for the Deputy Mayor’s post, Sangeeta Thakur, could barely secure five votes. One councillor from their group voted for the BJP candidate. BJP’s Meera Anand secured 12 votes and won the Deputy Mayor’s election with a thumping majority.

Terming it a victory of truth and teamwork, the newly elected Mayor, Usha Sharma, said she had appealed to everyone to vote for her and give her a chance to represent them in the Municipal Corporation.

“I’ve been working for the Congress for the last 30 years and have assiduously undertaken development works of my ward in the last two and a half years. I will ensure development of the entire Solan city with the same zest,” she said. She said a coterie surrounding the local MLA had been creating animosity in his mind about them which hindered their scope of forging ahead.

Dr Rajiv Bindal, state BJP president, said, “Though the Congress tried every trick in the book to capture the two posts by giving the right to vote to the local MLA, postponing the election from the earlier announced December 5 to December 7 when our councillor has gone out of station, it failed to bear fruit. Both their official candidates lost the elections.”

BJP’s state vice-president Sanjiv Katwal, who also camped in Solan to oversee the elections, said the results were a big blow to the ruling Congress which had failed to even fulfil its poll guarantees and the victory was an apt demonstration of the leadership displayed by Bindal.

Shandil congratulated Usha Sharma and Mira Anand for the victory and said it was the beauty of democracy that the writ of the majority prevailed.

Despite several rounds of talks with the nine Congress councillors, three Cabinet ministers failed to resolve the differences between the factions. The five councillors led by MLA DR Shandil did not even reveal the names of the official nominees to the other four party councillors. The latter learnt about their names after they filed the nominations minutes before the polling.