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Congress contests AAP’s claim of victory in Phagwara mayoral poll

AAP’s Uppal new Mayor | Names of Senior Dy Mayor, Dy Mayor not announced, claims Cong
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AAP minister Aman Arora with Mayor Ram Pal Uppal and supporters in Phagwara on Saturday.
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Phagwara, February 1

Even as the Aam Aadmi Party could win only 12 of 50 wards in the Phagwara Municipal Corporation election held on December 21, the party walked away, claiming that it had got elected Rampal Uppal as its new Mayor today.

After a painstaking effort, AAP kept on adding numbers and could touch only the figure of 17 till the last evening. It claimed getting support of nine more councillors, increasing its tally to 26. AAP’s claim, however, has been strongly contested by Phagwara Congress MLA Balwinder S Dhaliwal and mayoral candidate Sanjeev Bugga. They said while the Congress had the majority figure on its side and got 26 of 50 votes, the AAP had made a wrong claim of victory.

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Congress councillors even alleged that the names of Senior Deputy Mayor and Deputy Mayor had not even been announced inside the meeting hall and hence no election to these posts had officially been held. But AAP MP Dr Raj Kumar Chabbewal claimed that everything had been videographed on the orders of the Punjab and Haryana High Court and even retired judge Justice Harbans Lal was present as the HC observer and hence there was no possibility of any wrong claim.

AAP leaders were the first ones to come out of the poll venue which was the auditorium in Phagwara amid chanting of the name of its new Mayor. They claimed that they had won the post with 26-24 as one Congress councillor Gurpreet Kaur Jhinda did not turn up.

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The proceedings were held in the presence of Jalandhar Divisional Commissioner Arun Sekhri along with Municipal Corporation Commissioner Navneet Kaur Bal. AAP councillor Ravi Kumar, who was appointed as the presiding officer, announced the victory of Uppal.

Narrating the sequence of events, MLA Dhaliwal said, “Since the oath ceremony of two Independent councillors Davinder Sapra and his wife Rupali Sapra was pending, the proceeding started with them. After this, Sekhri appointed AAP’s Ravi Kumar for further proceedings. I sought that the Congress councillors should be allowed raise hands first. They were asked to raise their hands in support of the Congress candidate Bugga and the count came out to be 26.”

He went on, “After this, the presiding officer asked the councillors to raise the hand in support of AAP candidate Rampal Uppal. Dhaliwal alleged that of the total 50, 26 councillors had voted in support of Bugga so the remaining number was automatically 24, but the presiding officer declared that Uppal got 26 votes.”

Later, LoP Partap Singh Bajwa, PPCC chief Amarinder Raja Warring and MLA Dhaliwal described today’s episode as a murder of democracy. Dhaliwal alleged that despite HC’s order, nothing could be done transparently.

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