The Chandigarh unit of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) as well as the Congress on Thursday said that they will boycott the oath ceremony of nine new councillors as all the new members owed strong alleigance to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). UT Administrator Banwari Lal Purohit on October 25 had nominated as many as nine councillors of UT Municipal Corporation. Incidentally, all the nominated councillors owe strong allegiance to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), with five of them presently the office bearers of the party. The others are from BJP leaders Sanjay Tandon and Arun Sood’s camps. Chandigarh Deputy Commissioner will administer the oath of office to the new councillors on Friday at the assembly hall of Chandigarh Municipal Corporation in Sector 17 on Friday. On Thursday, AAP's Chandigarh co-Incharge Pardeep Chhabra and the party's Chandigarh unit president Prem Garg termed the nomination of BJP workers as councillors to the Municipal Corporation by the Administrator, as "unfortunate, unethical, illegal and murder of democracy." AAP's councillors, on the other hand, said that the very purpose of nominating councillors to the civic body was to ensure that people of eminence, who had expertise in various fields — like medicine, engineering, environment — were selected so that they could bring their expertise to the House. "Such nominations are otherwise also against the mandate of the voters of Chandigarh, who had voted for the Aam Aadmi Party to rule the civic corporation. First the BJP scuttled the popular mandate by getting one of their leaders elected as Mayor by deceit. Now by nominating BJP workers, who have no eligibility, to the House as nominated councillors, they are just strengthening their numbers," said AAP councillor Yogesh Dhingra, who i salso Leader of Opposition in the House. "The AAP strongly protests the unethical move of the BJP, which is misusing the office of the Administrator, for its nefarious designs to scuttle the voice of people of the city. The people of Chandigarh will teach the BJP a lesson in 2024, just as they did in the Panjab University elections by defeating all the ABVP candidates," Dhingra said. Congress set to boycott too In a meeting of its elected councilors of Chandigarh, the Congress on Thursday decided to boycott Friday's oath-taking ceremony of the new councillors. The meeting, which was presided over by president of Chandigarh unit of Congress HS Lucky, and was held at the Congress Bhawan in Sector 35, unanimously decided to Friday's ceremony. "The decision of boycott has been taken to protest against the arbitrary and untenable decision of Chandigarh Administrator Banwarilal Purohit to anoint BJP activists as nominated councilors of the corporation, while flouting the provisions of the Punjab Municipal Corporation Act as applicable to Chandigarh," the Congress party said in a statement on Thursday. On Thursday, councillors Gurbaksh Rawat, Gurpreet Singh Gabi, Jasbir Bunty, Darshana, Dilawar Singh, the husband of councillor Nirmala Devi, were present in the meeting. The fifth Congress councillor, Sachin Galav, gave his assent to the resolution via phone. The resolution passed in the meeting termed the decision to nominate the BJP activists as the nominated councilors "as a fraud that was committed on the people of Chandigarh." The councillors stated that this decision of the administration amounted to highjacking the mandate of the voters of Chandigarh given in the 2021 municipal elections. The party alleged that the BJP wants to gain complete control of the municipal corporation through dubious and undemocratic means, so that it can continue to loot the resources of the city through its anti-people and corrupt policies.
