BJP retains Chandigarh mayor post after 8 AAP & Congress councillors’ votes declared invalid

Eight votes cast by alliance councillors were declared invalid by presiding officer, leading BJP's Manoj Sonkar to win with 16 votes. Congress & BJP have moved court against poll result.

New mayor of Chandigarh, BJP's Manoj Sonkar (wearing saffron sash) is congratulated by supporters. The Congress and AAP have alleged that the mayoral election was 'rigged' | Photo: Satyam Yadav/ThePrint

Chandigarh: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Tuesday won the Chandigarh mayoral elections, defeating the Congress-Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) alliance after votes of eight councillors of the alliance were declared invalid.

BJP’s Manoj Sonkar won with 16 votes while alliance candidate Kuldeep Tita got only 12 valid votes. Eight votes cast by the alliance councillors were declared invalid by the presiding officer.

The BJP has 14 councillors and one MP (who has voting rights in the mayoral polls) and it got the support of the lone councillor of the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD).

A huge protest by the Congress and AAP supporters followed the elections that took place in the municipal corporation building in Chandigarh Tuesday morning amid unprecedented security.

Alleging foul play, AAP head and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said in a press conference in the Capital that “the BJP had won the election using unfair means” and it was a dangerous trend for the nation.

He asserted that “if the BJP had put in so much effort to win the election of mayor in a city, one could imagine what level of foul play would take place in the Lok Sabha elections” scheduled for later this year.

Kejriwal alleged that the presiding officer, Anil Masih, was an office-bearer of the BJP and had “helped” the party win the elections.

The Chandigarh mayoral elections are being looked upon as the first elections of the INDIA alliance, a central-level group formed by opposition parties coming together against the BJP.

For the mayoral elections, the AAP and Congress, both INDIA bloc constituents, had joined hands against the BJP and were hoping to grab not just the position of mayor but also of senior deputy mayor and deputy mayor.

Following the declaration of results Tuesday, Congress and the AAP councillors vociferously protested in the well of the corporation and refused to participate in the elections of the senior deputy mayor and deputy mayor.

The entire poll proceedings were relayed live for non-members and supporters.

High drama erupted in the house the minute the presiding officer declared the result and Sonkar came to stand next to him. Some AAP-Congress councillors rushed to grab the ballot papers that the presiding officer had stacked on two separate trays on his table. He raised an alarm and the corporation staff grabbed the papers back from the AAP-Congress councillors. The papers were handed over to the presiding officer, who was then seen rushing to his room and locking the door. The AAP-Congress councillors could be seen banging on his door, the video of the proceedings showed.

Talking to news agency ANI, Masih said a total of 36 votes were cast in the polls. “When we were issuing the ballot papers, a few AAP and Congress councillors were concerned that the papers had spots and marks — so, they asked me to change around 11 ballot papers. I honoured their request and kept the ballot papers in question on the side and issued them fresh ballot papers. When I finished the counting of votes, I was about to declare the results as per the process. BJP candidate Manoj Sonkar received 16 votes and AAP candidate Kuldeep received 12 votes; eight votes were invalid,” he said.

“I asked the polling agent of the AAP-Congress candidate to check the ballot papers but instead of doing that, AAP councillors and a few Congress councillors jumped on the table to disrupt the process, captured the ballot papers and tore them up… AAP and Congress hatched a conspiracy to derail the election process,” he alleged.

The Congress and AAP moved the Punjab and Haryana High Court later, challenging the results of the election. The court will hear the matter Wednesday.

AAP, Congress cry foul 

At the press conference, Kejriwal said that the AAP had 13 seats while the Congress had seven in the 36-seat Chandigarh Municipal Corporation (35 councillors and one ex-officio seat of the sitting Chandigarh MP).

“Since the BJP had 15 votes (including the MP’s) for the past two years, the mayor of the city had been a BJP councillor. The AAP and Congress had decided to come together for the mayoral elections in Chandigarh as part of the INDIA bloc,” Kejriwal said. In 2022 and 2023, the Congress and SAD had abstained from voting.

He said that 20 votes had been cast for the joint AAP-Congress candidate and 16 had been cast for the BJP candidate.

“The presiding officer is an office-bearer of the BJP and he played foul, rejecting eight votes of the alliance,” alleged Kejriwal.

Addressing a joint press conference with the AAP in Chandigarh Tuesday, former railways minister and senior Congress leader Pawan Bansal too said “it was shocking that the BJP had stooped so low to win the mayoral elections”.

“Sensing their defeat, the BJP has been trying to thwart these elections from day one,” he said.

He alleged that the press was not allowed to witness the elections, which has never happened before.

“However, thankfully the entire process was live streamed. It was shocking to see that the presiding officer usurped the role of the secretary and other functionaries of the municipal corporation and took upon himself to do the counting of the ballot papers, rejecting or accepting them as he wished,” said Bansal.

Rajya Sabha member Raghav Chadha too raised objections before the media about the conduct of the presiding officer.

How polls were held

The mayoral elections were to be held on 18 January but had to be postponed after the presiding officer said he was unwell. The elections were then postponed by the Chandigarh administration indefinitely, on the grounds that the law and order situation was not conducive.

The administration had informed the high court that the Punjab Police were interfering in the smooth conduct of the polls and several AAP councillors had been seen being escorted by the police to the corporation office.

When the Congress and AAP moved court against the indefinite postponement of elections, the administration announced that the elections would be held on 6 February. However, the court asked the Chandigarh administration to hold the polls on 30 January.

Elections to the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation are held every five years but elections to the four top positions are held at the start of each year.

The last elections to the corporation were held in January 2022. The BJP has 14 councillors apart from an ex-officio member — party MP Kirron Kher, who has voting rights. The AAP has 13 councillors and the Congress seven. The Shiromani Akali Dal has one member.

For the past two years, in 2022 and 2023, the mayor has been of the BJP.

(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)