BJP takes post of Chandigarh Mayor, AAP and Congress say fraud

Kuldeep Singh Tita, AAP councillor and the alliance candidate for the post of Mayor, burst into tears after being denied victory. He later moved the Punjab and Haryana High Court, urging it to set aside the election which he called a “complete fraud”. His petition will be heard Wednesday.

Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann slammed the manner in which the elections were conducted, and called it “the death of democracy”.

AAP leader and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, who called it “a black day for democracy,” said, “Gandhiji was assassinated on this date and after 76 years, they have murdered democracy… Anyone can win or lose elections, but the country should not lose… The issue is that they have won the Chandigarh Mayoral elections with open fraud.”

Pawan Kumar Bansal, former Congress MP from Chandigarh and a Minister in the erstwhile UPA government, alleged that election agents of neither the AAP nor Congress were allowed to see the ballot papers.

“The presiding officer announced the rejection of eight votes, declared the BJP candidate the winner and went away. BJP members rushed to the table and tore the ballot papers,” Bansal said.

Incidentally, in a first, the media was kept away from the House and the poll proceedings were beamed on a screen outside the Municipal House.

Elected for a year, the Mayor’s powers are limited to calling meetings and deciding the agenda. This year, the three mayoral posts were reserved for Scheduled Caste candidates.

On the face of it, the scales seemed tipped in favour of the alliance which had 20 votes with 13 AAP and 7 Congress councillors up against 14 BJP councillors. BJP MP Kirron Kher too had a vote. There was one councillor representing the SAD.

With 36 votes at stake, the AAP-Congress combine was confident of a victory. But eight of its votes were declared invalid and it managed only 12 in favour of its candidate. Sonkar, the BJP candidate, was declared the winner with 16 votes in his favour.

The AAP alleged that the presiding officer, Anil Masih, a nominated councillor who is the general secretary of the BJP minority cell, had himself scratched the ballot papers in a bid to invalidate them – a charge he rejected.

Masih said, “I invited polling agents of the two parties to come forward to check the ballot papers. Instead, two AAP councillors… attempted to seize the ballot papers, which got slightly torn. Fortunately, Chandigarh Police intervened, and marshals sealed the ballot papers. Everything has been videotaped.”

The voting began at 11.13 am, after almost an hour’s delay. Deputy Commissioner Vinay Pratap Singh said that voting would take place ward-wise. The lone SAD councillor asked if there was a provision for NOTA, but the DC said no.

Soon after the counting began, Congress and AAP councillors alleged that Masih was scribbling on ballot papers, and that led to 8 votes being declared invalid.

The moment Masih declared BJP’s Sonkar the winner with 16 votes, there was a ruckus in the House and marshals were called to restore order.

The alliance stayed away as the polls for Senior Deputy Mayor and Deputy Mayor were held and the two posts too went to the BJP.

The BJP alleged that the moment Sonkar rose to take the Mayor’s seat, AAP councillors tried to come near the dais and tear the ballot papers, a charge that the AAP rejected. The AAP instead accused the BJP of tearing the ballot papers.

Arun Sood, BJP in-charge for Chandigarh and a former Mayor, told The Indian Express that the AAP and Congress did not manage to keep their flock together.

“The alliance was not between the two parties but between Pawan Bansal and (AAP Rajya Sabha MP) Raghav Chadha for personal objectives. They did not trust their own councillors who were kept hostage for days before this election,” Sood alleged.

“The councillors were asked not to bolt the door even while going to the washroom. This mistrust led to gaps and eventually to this result. All our 16 votes remained intact,” he said.

The elections, which were earlier scheduled for January 18, were deferred at the last minute when the presiding officer reported ill. Masih said he had a backache and was admitted to the government hospital in Sector 16.

This was a day after Raghav Chadha called the alliance the beginning of the end of BJP rule in the face of Opposition unity.

Thereafter, there was a move to defer the polls to February 6, but AAP approached the High Court which scheduled the polls for January 30.