Hamirpur (HP), Jun 24 (PTI) BJP councillors and members held a protest here on Wednesday alleging irregularities in the election for the posts of president and vice-president of the Sujanpur municipal council in Hamirpur district and demanding its annulment.
BJP’s state spokesperson and former MLA leader Rajendra Rana, who led the protest, alleged that the administration conducted the election by bypassing established legal and constitutional procedures “under pressure from Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu and the local MLA”.
He said that according to Section 52(3) of the Himachal Pradesh Municipalities Act, 1994, the election of the President and Vice-President must be conducted via secret ballot, but in Sujanpur, voting was conducted through a show of hands.
Rana said that the secret ballot is the soul of democracy, granting elected representatives the right to cast their votes freely and impartially.
He claimed that conducting the vote openly by a show of hands compromised the independence of the councillors and undermined the democratic system.
“Constitutional procedures were disregarded to gain political advantage,” he alleged and called for appropriate action against officials who “influenced the electoral process and those responsible for political interference”.
During the protest, BJP workers and councillors led by Rana raised slogans against the government and the administration, and an effigy was burnt to express outrage.
Following the protest, a BJP delegation submitted a memorandum addressed to the Governor to the Deputy Commissioner of Hamirpur, demanding the immediate annulment of the election of Sujanpur Municipal Council President and Vice-President.
The four BJP-backed councillors also submitted a separate memorandum to the SDM and Returning Officer of Sujanpur, demanding the cancellation of the election process on the grounds that it was “unconstitutional”. PTI COR BPL RT
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