LS election out of way, focus on pending civic body polls

Ashok Kaura

Phagwara, June 2

As the balloting for the Lok Sabha election is over, the public attention has now shifted to pending civic body polls that couldn’t be held in the state for months as the delimitation process was challenged in courts.

The Tribune has learnt that five municipal corporations – Phagwara, Amritsar, Jalandhar, Ludhiana and Patiala – and 42 smaller municipal committees are being run by bureaucrats for the past several months.

The term of Phagwara Municipal Corporation got over in March 2020, but election for the same could not be held in the past four years.

Deep factionalism in the ruling Aam Aadmi Party was stated to be another key reason behind delay in holding MC election.

The Aam Aadmi Party is divided into two factions. The old group is led by Santosh Kumar Gogi, who lost the Assembly election in 2017, while the other is led by former minister Joginder Singh Maan, who joined the Aam Aadmi Party in 2022 and contested Assembly elections from Phagwara, but lost.

The Punjab Government appointed District Planning Board chairperson Lalita Saklani and AAP leader Nirmal Singh as members of the ward delimitation committee, but the suggestions of the committee members were reportedly ignored by officials.

A member of the committee, on condition of anonymity, said municipal corporation officials were creating new wards at their own will and the committee was not being provided even with maps of the new wards.

Congress MLA Balwinder Singh Dhaliwal said as the delimitation of wards was done wrongly, his party knocked the doors of the High Court.