‘I was misled’: Chandigarh BJP leader Kuljeet Sandhu distances himself from villagers’ NOTA announcement

Sandhu added, “It is the BJP that has done a lot of work for these villages. It was our MP Kirron Kher who got a special grant of Rs 103 crore for our villages. The volume of work that has been done in BJP’s time..it can never be even counted… I am not even associated with this manch they have formed.”

On Satinder Singh, the nominated councillor, too being with him, he said, “I am not even associated with Satinder Singh. He was with the village representatives. So I went. I am reiterating that I have no association with what they said. It is the BJP that has worked entirely for the villagers and will continue to do so.”

The Opposition alleged that the BJP leader had effectively admitted that the villagers were deprived of their rights and that NOTA was the only option before them.

AAP councillor Prem Lata said, “Surprisingly, among those representatives who are seeking NOTA votes is the BJP’s own deputy mayor and Satinder Singh is the nominated councillor of the Chandigarh civic body.”

“You should know now what it means when BJP’s own senior leader was seeking support for NOTA votes during the elections. He agrees that villages have been left unattended owing to the BJP’s stepmotherly treatment,” Lata said.

On Saturday, sarpanches and other village representatives who have been demanding facilities similar to those of urban areas, announced that they had set up a non-political forum to register their protest against the administration if the streets or villages were not developed or residents were not provided their rights. Sandhu was present during the announcement.

The Chandigarh Pendu Vikas Manch, a non-political forum, told reporters on Saturday that like Punjab and Haryana, Chandigarh should implement a land-pooling policy to resolve land acquisition issues.

“The prolonged proposal of land pooling will resolve construction issues outside the red zone in the city’s villages, which the administration currently considers illegal. The proposal will benefit the 22 villages that will be developed similar to the cities. The land pooling policy will enable the use of agricultural land for commercial purposes,” Satinder Singh, president of the forum, had said.