Chandigarh (Punjab): In a setback to the INDIA bloc and Congress, the Bharatiya Janata Party won both the Senior Deputy Mayor and the Deputy Mayor seats in Chandigarh on Monday.
BJP's Kuljeet Singh Sandhu won the elections for Senior Deputy Mayor of Chandigarh, securing 19 votes.
He defeated INDIA bloc candidate Gurpreet Singh Gabi.
The BJP got 19 votes, while the INDIA bloc (Congress + AAP) got 16. One vote was declared invalid.
Rajendra Kumar Sharma won the Deputy Mayor post getting 19 votes while the opposition secured 17.
In the 35-member Chandigarh Municipality, the BJP-led bloc had 14 seats but their strength was boosted on February 19 when three Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) councillors joined the BJP.
The three Aam Aadmi Party Chandigarh councillors who joined BJP were Punam Devi, Neha Musawat, and Gurcharan Kala in the presence of party National General Secretary Vinod Tawde, in Delhi. The BJP also has the support of the sole Akali Dal councillor.
Reacting to the result, Punjab BJP President Sunil Jakhar said, "The whole problem is not of Mayor and Deputy Mayor, the problem lies in the coalition of AAP and Congress in Punjab. They are misleading the people of Punjab... BJP has numbers. But whatever it is should happen systematically..."
Earlier, the Supreme Court declared Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) councillor Kuldeep Kumar as the winner of the Chandigarh mayoral polls.
This came after the order of the apex court on the Mayoral polls found that the Returning Officer had deliberately defaced eight ballots that were cast in favour of Kuldeep Kumar to make them invalid.
A bench of Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud and Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra quashed the decision by Returning Officer Anil Masih, who declared BJP candidate Manoj Kumar Sonkar as Chandigarh Mayor on January 30.
The apex court physically examined the ballot papers and found that they were not defaced. It directed that Kuldeep Kumar be declared as the mayor with 20 votes (12 votes which he received and 8 which were for him and were defaced by Masih).
—ANI