Two months on, Sangrur awaits election of civic body president

Over two months after they were elected to the Sangrur Municipal Council, 29 councillors are awaiting constitution of the House and their oath-taking ceremony. In such a situation, the president of the council could not be elected.

The civic body elections were held on December 21 last year and the results were declared the same day. It is a talk of the town that the House of the council could not be formed and the president not elected so far as the ruling party (Aam Aadmi Party) does not have numbers to secure majority.

In the elections, seven AAP candidates made it to the MC House. The Congress won nine seats and Bharatiya Janata Party three while 10 won as Independents.

Two AAP legislators, Sangrur MLA Narinder Kaur Bharaj and Sunam’s Aman Arora, who is also state president of AAP, are ex-officio members, having the right to vote in the House meetings.

After the elections, five Independent councillors have joined AAP. Thus, the party now has 14 votes, short of two to have a majority in the 31-member House.

A couple of days ago, a group of councillors met Deputy Commissioner Sandeep Rishi and submitted a representation to him, seeking election to the post of the MC president and holding their oath-taking ceremony at the earliest. They said since they were yet to be administered the oath of office, they were unable to certify documents of people. They said if the administration did not hold the MC chief’s election in a week, they would be compelled to move High Court.

When contacted, Deputy Commissioner Sandeep Rishi said he had directed the sub-divisional magistrate to convene a meeting for the oath-taking ceremony and election of the president of the council in the coming week.