Political parties weigh options for mayoral poll as leaders switch sides
After Block Congress Committee president and party councillor Munish Prabhakar joined AAP on Tuesday, District Congress Committee president Balwinder Singh Dhaliwal, who is also the Phagwara MLA, appointed Bunty Walia as the new BCC president on Wednesday.
The political events took an ugly turn after three Congress councillors (Ram Pal Uppal, Munish Prabhakar, Padam Dev Sudhir) and one BJP councillor (Paramjit Singh Khurana) joined AAP in two days.
As the Congress had knocked the doors of the High Court against the sudden adjournment of the meeting for the mayoral elections by the presiding officer on January 25 following a ruckus created by the ruling party amid noisy slogans against presiding officer and AAP councillor Vikki Sood that day, Divisional Commissioner of Jalandhar Arun Sekhri called another meeting of all elected councillors on February 1 at 4 pm in the auditorium behind the rest house in Phagwara. The High Court has appointed a retired HC judge, Justice Harbans Lal, to monitor the entire proceedings of the mayoral meeting on February 1.
Interestingly, Phagwara Municipal Commissioner Navneet Kaur Bal has sent notices for the meeting to all 50 councillors and Phagwara MLA Balwinder Singh Dhaliwal through WhatsApp late on Tuesday night while formal notices were delivered to them on Wednesday morning before the hearing of the petition of Congress councillor Bikram Singh.
According to these notices, oath would be administered to two remaining councillors, Davinder Sapra (Ward no. 12) and Rupali Sapra (Ward no. 13) who reached a few minutes late on January 25. After the oath ceremony, the mayoral elections would be held strictly as per rules by the Jalandhar Divisional Commissioner, Arun Sekhri.
In the present scenario, after the three councillors left the Congress, the number of the Congress-BSP alliance can be counted as 22 plus one vote of MLA Dhaliwal, while Congress councillor Sanjeev Bugga is claiming the support of more than three Independents.
The number of AAP councillors has now risen to 18 and AAP needs the support of eight more councillors. AAP leaders are keeping an eye on the elected councillors of SAD, the BJP and even BSP, besides independent councillors. The mystery would be resolved only in the meeting on February 1.
Meanwhile, several BJP leaders like former Rajya Sabha Member Avinash Rai Khanna, former Union Minister Som Parkash, national farmers’ leader Sukhminderpal Singh Grewal and Parminder Mehta have criticised the ongoing horse-trading of councillors in the context of the mayoral elections. In different statements released here, they accused senior leaders of major political parties of indulging in buying and selling councillors, calling it a blatant murder of democracy.
They pointed out that the Municipal Corporation elections, held on December 21, reflected the will of the people of Phagwara, who decisively voted against turncoats. However, they expressed regret that the meeting scheduled for January 25 to elect the Mayor, Senior Deputy Mayor and Deputy Mayor was postponed without any voting.
They alleged that political leaders were more focused on manipulating elected representatives rather than respecting the mandate of the people. “Councillors who indulge in party-hopping and betray public trust are guilty in the eyes of the people. Party leaders must introspect if they are tarnishing democracy by turning councillors into commodities for bidding,” he stated.