Chandigarh Mayoral elections: BJP-SAD stops Cong in its tracks, makes clean sweep of 3 top posts

City BJP chief Sanjay Tandon termed it was a wonderful farewell given to him by the councilors. Tandon’s tenure as the chief is near completion.

BJP councillor Arun Sood with his supporters after being elected Mayor, in Sector 17, Chandigarh, on Friday. (Source: Kamleshwar Singh)

The BJP-SAD alliance made a clean sweep of all the three posts in the mayoral elections on Friday, putting the brakes on the eight-year-long winning streak of the Congress. A BJP mayor is back in the saddle after a gap of 15 years.

BJP councillor Arun Sood defeated Mukesh Bassi of the Congress by a margin of six votes for the mayor’s post. Of the 36 votes cast, Bassi secured 15 votes while 21 votes were cast in favour of Sood, who had lost the election in 2013. Similarly, for the post of senior deputy mayor, Davesh Moudgil got 23 votes while Congress candidate Darshan Garg could manage only 13 of them. For the post of deputy mayor, Hardeep Singh of SAD polled 21 votes, defeating Gurbax Rawat of the Congress.

Behind the victory of the BJP-SAD alliance were attempts of the senior leaders to keep the flock together as initially there was dissent over Sood’s name for the mayor’s post. As a result, the factions within the party united. Incharge of the Chandigarh unit of BJP Prabhat Jha, who held a series of meetings with the councillors before the election, was present during the election process.

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Jha had told the councillors to stay together and ensure victory of the party. The stakes were high for the BJP this time. During the last mayoral elections, despite having more councillors in the House, the BJP had lost the elections as it was not able to get support from nominated councillors.

In the 36-member House, there are 13 councillors of the BJP, eight of the Congress, two each of the BSP and SAD and one Independent. Local MP Kirron Kher has one vote. This time, apart from ensuring that its councillors stayed together, the BJP leaders made efforts to woo the nominated councillors as well. Meetings of the councillors were arranged with Punjab and Haryana Governor Kaptan Singh Solanki, Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar, Union Health Minister J P Nadda and several other senior leaders. The BJP councillors had also met Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal.

“Congress was thinking that differences within the BJP will make them win the elections easily but they were mistaken. I would just like to say united we stand, divided we fall,” said BJP leader and former MP Satya Pal Jain who was present during the elections.

According to sources, in the mayor polling, five of the nine votes of the nominated councillors are said to have been cast for the BJP.

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Jha said, “There was no special strategy but this time I had given out a clear message to everybody that we will fight with unity. I had one-to-one with the councillors yesterday to infuse the feeling that we are one.”

City BJP chief Sanjay Tandon termed it was a wonderful farewell given to him by the councillors. Tandon’s tenure as the chief is near completion.

The BJP had its last mayor in 2000 when Shanta Hit Abhilashi won the election. SAD councillor Harjinder Kaur was mayor in 2007. Thereafter, it was the Congress which won the post of the mayor eight times.

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