Mohali MC without vice-presidents for over 15 months; Kharar councillors wait for presidents’ poll even after 45 daysThe elected municipal councillors in Mohali and Kharar are rendered “non-functional” under the administrative and political one-upmanship. Both the civic bodies are rendered “powerless” without a president and vice-presidents as the elected municipal councillors have been kept out without oath and charge.While the Mohali Municipal Council (MC) is left without vice-presidents for over 15 months now, Kharar municipal councillors are waiting for their first meeting to take oath and elect a president and vice-presidents, even after 45 days of their election.The one-year term of Mohali MC’s senior and junior vice-presidents had expired in August 2007, since then no election was conducted to elect new incumbents for the coveted posts. While one term of both the offices has lapsed without incumbents, another three months have also expired in the ongoing third annual term.Attributing the delay to the “failure” and “incapability” of the present SAD-BJP regime, Kharar Congress MLA Balbir Sidhu has threatened to move the High Court, if the elections were not conducted forthwith. “Cooperation Minister Capt Kanwaljit Singh is adopting every tactic to wrest control over Mohali and Kharar civic bodies. But the majority is with me,” alleged Sidhu, claiming support of 8 of the total 15 municipal councillors in Kharar and 20 of the total 31 in Mohali.However, Captain Kanwaljit said: “We have an absolute majority in the Kharar MC and will capture top posts as and when the election takes place,” asserted the minister.In Kharar, 15 municipal councillors were elected on September 14. Since then, no meeting has been convened to administer them an oath of allegiance and conduct elections for the new president and vice-presidents.Though the law stipulates 14 days — from the date of publication of notification of the election of councillors — for calling the first meeting, Kharar Sub-Divisional Magistrate (SDM) Rajeev Kumar Gupta, who was appointed convener by Mohali Deputy Commissioner Rahul Bhandari, has left the elected public representatives in a lurch without convening the meeting.Earlier, the Kharar MC was kept under the Administrator’s rule without any elected body for almost six months after the expiry of the five-year term of the previous house in March.In Mohali, the offices of the MC senior vice-president Rishav Jain and junior vice-president Harman Preet Singh Prince had expired in August 2007. They were elected in August 2006 after the present House of the civic body was elected.Calling it the “murder of democracy” and “depriving” councillors their constitutional right, Councillor Kuljit Singh Bedi had also written to Mohali Deputy Commissioner seeking directions to Mohali SDM to immediately convene the meeting for holding the election to the posts of MC vice-chiefs in September, but in vain.Though in 2007, former Deputy Commissioner HIS Grewal had asked SDM Raghbeer Kaur Khaira to convene a special meeting to hold the election for both the posts.In February, 8 councillors — Rajinder Parsad Sharma, Manjit Kaur, Usha Rani, Parkash Wati, Amteshwar Kaur, Suresh Kumar, Gian Chand and Gurmeet Singh — had served a requisition under the provision of Section 25(2) of the Punjab Municipal Act, 1911, to MC president Rajinder Singh Rana to convene a special meeting of the MC House for conducting the elections but that also remained futile.DC SPEAKS“The elections should have been conducted within the stipulated time period but I don’t know why they were being delayed. I have asked the SDMs to hold the elections immediately withoutany further delay,” said Mohali Deputy Commissioner Rahul Bhandari.
