BJP candidate wins Chandigarh mayoral election

Bharatiya Janata Party leader Harpreet Babla on Thursday won the Chandigarh mayoral election, defeating the Aam Aadmi Party and Congress’ joint candidate Prem Lata, The Indian Express reported.

Babla will become mayor of the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation. She received 19 votes of the 36 votes polled, while Lata got 17.

The Chandigarh Municipal Corporation has 35 members, including elected councillors and Chandigarh MP Manish Tewari, who has voting rights as an ex-officio member, NDTV reported.

The Aam Aadmi Party and Congress alliance failed to elect the mayor despite their numbers due to apparent cross-voting by councillors in favour of the BJP, PTI reported.

The Aam Aadmi Party has 13 councillors in the corporation while the Congress has six. One vote was cast by Tewari, who is part of the Congress. The BJP has 16 after Congress councillor Gurbax Rawat defected to it ahead of the elections.

Voting began through secret ballot at 11 am on Thursday under the supervision of Justice Jaishree Thakur, a former Punjab and Haryana High Court judge. The proceedings were also recorded on camera.

The Supreme Court on Monday appointed Thakur as an independent observer to monitor the voting. The court issued the order on a petition filed by Kuldeep Kumar, the incumbent Chandigarh mayor and an Aam Aadmi Party leader.

Kumar had sought that the election be…

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