AAP in touch with Independents to have its own mayor

With no single party getting a majority in the Jalandhar MC House and the Congress and BJP unlikely to stitch an alliance, AAP has the advantage. Emerging as the single largest party with 38 councillors, AAP is now trying to rope in five more councillors to be in a position to have its own mayor.

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Amid the hopping of candidates ahead of the MC elections, AAP, which is the largest party here, is reportedly in touch with many of the winning candidates who were with it earlier.

While AAP banked heavily on tuncoats, many of these have proven to be AAP’s biggest losers in the poll. On the other hand, much to the party’s relief, almost all rebels, which were at the forefront to level charges against the party of giving tickets to parachute candidates - have lost the elections.

Constituency-wise, AAP won 10 seats in Jalandhar West, which has a total of 24 seats, 11 seats in Jalandhar North (total 24), nine in Jalandhar Central (total 23) and eight in Jalandhar Cantt (total 14).

Senior leaders said of the 38 candidates, who have won on the party ticket, a very small count includes loyalists — most of them came from other parties.

The turncoats, who proved profitable for the party include Aruna Arora, Amit Dhall, Balbir Singh Bittu and his wife Karamjit Kaur, Vanit Dhir, Rajesh Thakur Money - some of them joined the party three or more years ago.

Meanwhile, many of the AAP rebels like Raman Kumar Bunty (Ward 58), Kashmir Singh (Ward 58), Baljeet Singh Popi (Ward 17) among others also lost. The only exception is former Congressman Tarsem Lakhotra, who shifted to AAP but denied ticket. He decided to contest as an Independent and won from Ward 46.

Although the decision to choose the Mayor will come only after the party is able to get a majority in the House - the names of former BJP leader Vanit Dhir, who joined days ahead of the poll, and party Lok Sabha in-charge Ashwani Aggarwal are already doing the rounds. With 44 women councillors in the MC, there are also speculations that the party may go in for a woman mayor and Sunita Tikka’s name is also doing the rounds.