Vaneet Dhir of AAP elected Jalandhar Mayor amid furore

The oath-taking ceremony of councillors and Jalandhar mayoral polls were held amid furore at the Red Cross Bhawan today.

Several BJP councillors had not even reached the venue when name of businessman Vaneet Dhir, who switched loyalty to AAP from the saffron outfit before civic elections, was elected Mayor. Balbir Bittu was elected as a senior deputy mayor and Manjit Subhana as a deputy mayor.

Aware that there was a lot of disillusionment among the AAP councillors and the new joinees, the Congress councillors and MLAs Pargat Singh, Bawa Henry and Sukhwinder Kotli had planned cross-voting, which could not materialise.

The AAP councillors were asked to assemble at Hotel Radisson at 11.30 am where Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann’s OSD Rajbir Singh, ministers Dr Ravjot Singh, Harbhajan Singh ETO and Mohinder Bhagat, MLAs Raman Arora and Balkar Singh were present. A bus ferried all the AAP councillors from the hotel to the Red Cross Bhawan. AAP state chief Aman Arora, too, made it to the venue to make sure that things went in the party’s favour, especially since it failed to get a majority in the December 21 civic body poll. AAP could bag 38 wards out of 85. Later, four councillors from the BJP, two from the Congress and two Independents joined the party. “The entire process was conducted in an undemocratic manner. AAP has set a bad precedent by indulging in horse trading,” said MLA Pargat Singh.

Countering the charges, Arora said, “Women have been given due representation in the party and they will get more responsibilities in future as well. As we had more councillors, we hired a bus to ferry them together to the venue.”