City to have woman Mayor, AAP holds meeting

The state government has reserved the post of Mayor in Ludhiana for a woman.

Meanwhile, even after seventeen days since the Municipal Corporation elections were held, no party has been able to prove its majority. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) got the maximum of 41 seats, Congress secured 30, BJP won 19, SAD got two seats and three seats were won by Independents.

Ruling party to finalise name today

State president of AAP Aman Arora on Tuesday held a meeting at Chandigarh in which all MLAs, along with the district president, were present and a strategy was planned to prove majority to form the House and get Mayor from their party elected. A discussion on finalising the name for the Mayor was also held on Tuesday but no final decision could be taken and now, the meeting would be convened again on Wednesday, said a senior AAP leader.

It is expected that AAP will propose to form the House to Divisional Commissioner as it has highest number of winning candidates and will prove it in the first meeting of the MC House. The next step to elect the Mayor, now depends upon the number of members present in

the House and cross-voting can also play an important role here.

Cross-voting refers to a scenario where members of a political party or coalition vote against their party’s directives or candidate preference. What matters is not the overall majority but the number of votes secured by the mayoral candidate on the voting day.

Since wives of both MLAs lost the elections, name of principal Inderjit Kaur, Nidhi Gupta and Amrit Varsha Rampal is now making the rounds for the post of Mayor.

The names that have been making the rounds for the post of deputy mayor and senior deputy mayor are six-time councillor Rakesh Prashar and Aman Bagga.

Candidates who get highest votes will be elected as mayor, the senior deputy mayor and deputy mayor. A lot depends on how many members will be present on the voting day. Ex-officio members (MLAs) are also allowed to vote as per rules. The elections will be held by show of hands.

There would be no election in case there is only one candidate proposed for the Mayor’s post but the poll would take place if there is over one candidate and the one getting highest votes would be declared the winner.

It is not binding on all members that they must vote, it’s their choice and they can even opt out

and cross voting can also be done.

President of the District Congress Committee Sanjay Talwar said AAP had been exposed in front of everyone. “Everybody knows how they tried to get councillors to their side by hook or crook and now that nobody is ready to join the party, they will be relying on cross-voting,” Talwar said.

“We never wanted AAP to form the House in the interests of the city. The Buddha Nullah is one of the major issues in the city and the state government has failed to do anything in this regard then, how will the local government be able to do something constructive in this regard,” he said.

“Ludhiana is one of the major cities of the state and needs a mature and sensible MC House, which can look into issues faced by it. We were even ready to get into alliance with the BJP for the sake of Ludhiana but higher-ups of the BJP failed to understand the gravity of the situation,” Talwar said.

BJP district president Rajneesh Dhiman, however, said the BJP was currently following the policy of wait and watch. “We will take any decision after consultation with the high command, once some step is taken by any political party. It is clear that alliance with the Congress or extending support to any Independent candidate is a complete no from our side,” he said.