The BJP emerged victorious in the Chandigarh mayoral election on Thursday securing 19 out of the 36 votes in the House. Harpreet Kaur Babla, the BJP’s nominee, has been elected as the new mayor. According to the presiding officer, all 36 votes were cast, with no invalid ballots. Babla received 19 votes, while Prem Lata, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) candidate backed by the Congress, garnered 17 votes. The outcome was influenced by three councillors from the opposition alliance who defected and voted in favor of the BJP.
This defeat marks a significant setback for the AAP-Congress alliance, which had 19 councillors prior to the election. The alliance had also hoped to secure the support of its ex-officio member, Member of Parliament Manish Tewari, which would have brought their total to 20. Meanwhile, the BJP, with 16 councillors, relied on defections to clinch the necessary majority.
Ahead of the election, Congress councillor Gurbax Rawat switched allegiances and joined the BJP. In an attempt to prevent further defections, the alliance moved its councillors to a hotel in Ropar, Punjab, but despite these efforts, three councillors broke ranks and voted against their party’s candidate.
To ensure a fair process for the Chandigarh mayoral election, the Supreme Court had appointed former Punjab and Haryana High Court judge Justice Jaishree Thakur as an independent observer. The election was conducted under her oversight, with all proceedings being recorded on camera.
2024 Mayoral Controversy
In the 2024 mayoral election, the presiding officer, Masih, a nominated councillor in the Municipal Corporation, was caught on camera invalidating eight ballots cast for AAP-Congress candidate Kuldeep Kumar Dhalor in an apparent effort to favor BJP‘s Manoj Sonkar. The Supreme Court, after determining that the vote tampering was intentional, overturned the results and declared Dhalor as the winner, making him the first non-BJP, non-Congress mayor of the city. The scandal sparked nationwide outrage and severely damaged the BJP’s reputation, a sentiment reflected in the subsequent Lok Sabha election results.
