Wait for second Mayor in Phagwara gets longer, election postponed amid ruckus

The wait for getting the second Mayor in Phagwara has become somewhat longer. It was in March 2015 that the city had got its first Mayor — BJP’s Arun Khosla. Even though it has been almost five years since his term got over, the city has not been able to get an incumbent for the top post of the civic body.

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Post December 21 Municipal Corporation (MC) polls in 50 wards, the Mayoral election to the civic body were scheduled for this evening, but it could not be held amid ruckus created by the AAP councillors. The Congress and BSP councillors, who were confident that they would be able to jointly elect their Mayor, had come all prepared, while carrying garlands and sweets with them. But they all had to go back disappointed.

All 22 Congress councillors came in a bus hired by party MLA Balwinder Dhaliwal. The three BSP councillors also alighted from the same bus outside the election venue — an auditorium on the backside of the PWD guest house. Since the party had already approached the Punjab and Haryana High Court for seeking arrangements be made by officials for a free and fair election, they were confident that the poll process would go on smoothly.

All arrangements for videography inside and outside the venue had been made by the administration, but the meeting was stopped abruptly even before the Congress councillors could propose any names.

Just a night before the Mayoral election in Phagwara, the Congress activists came to know about an FIR registered against family members of two of their party councillors. Despite a communique by Phagwara MLA Balwinder Singh Dhaliwal to Kapurthala Senior Superintendent of the Police (SSP) Gaurav Toora on January 23 to prevent the city police from undue harassment of the Congress councillors and their families, cases against two Congress activists were registered under Section 318(4) and 13 Punjab Travel Professions Regulation Act for defrauding people on the pretext of sending them abroad. Gurjit Walia was running Bright Future IELTS Centre and Mukesh Kumar Bhatia was running Oxford Institute.

On a complaint lodged by Vipin Kumar, a resident of Hardasspur village, the police registered a case at 9.15 pm on January 23. The said accused Gurjit Walia is former Block Congress Committee President and husband of elected Congress councillor Paramjit Kaur Walia (Ward No. 15), while Mukesh Kumar Bhatia is husband of elected Congress councillor Pinki Bhatia (Ward No. 7). Gurjit Walia said he had closed his firm around one-and-a-half year ago. Dhaliwal said these pressure tactics of the ruling AAP could not help the party win trust of the people in the state.