15 councillors join AAP in Kharar, civic council president may be removed soon

Before Friday’s switch, the SAD had eight councillors in the house, Congress had 10, the AAP had one, while eight were Independents. The SAD’s Jaspreet Kaur Longia is the president of the House.

Some of the councillors who switched over to the AAP on Friday were Rajbir Singh Raji, Harinder Pal Singh Jolly, Gurvinder Singh Cheema, Vaneet Jain Bittu, Sohan Singh Chhaju Majra, Gurdeep Kaur, Jasbir Kaur, Karamjeet Kaur, Ram Sarup, Paramjeet Kaur, Namita Jolly and Shivani Chadha.

Friday’s switch comes after several days of rumours making the rounds that stated that some councillors from other parties could join the AAP as they were upset owing to the stagnation of development work being carried out in their wards.

Kharar Municipal Council has 27 members and 18 councillors are required to remove the civic body president from office. Sources said that if a no-confidence motion is indeed brought against the president, then five more councillors will support it apart from the 15 who switched over to the AAP on Friday.

Contacted, the state executive member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Narendra Rana said that Aam Aadmi Party supremo Arvind Kejriwal and Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann kept making a hue and cry about an alleged Operation Lotus by his party. “They should now clarify about Operation Broom,” Rana said.