Chandigarh: With the alliance talks between Congress and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) falling through, it seems to be a three-way fight ahead for the January 29 Chandigarh mayoral poll here.
While BJP fielded its candidates for mayor, senior deputy mayor and deputy mayor, the Congress and AAP also fielded their respective candidates for these three posts. Thursday was the last day of filing the nominations. An AAP councillor has also filed his papers for the mayor’s post as an independent candidate.
While BJP has fielded Saurabh Joshi for the high-stakes mayor’s election, Congress, fielded Gurpreet Singh Gabi and AAP, Yogesh Dhingra.
For record, while BJP has 18 councillors in 35-member MC House, the Congress, six and AAP 11 while the Chandigarh’s MP (Congress’ Manish Tiwari) also has an ex-officio vote. In case of draw, the election, as per law, would be held by draw of lots.
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Notably, it will be first time in the political history of Chandigarh since the establishment of the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation (MC) in 1996 that a mayor will be elected through open show of hands instead of secret ballot paper; apparently a fallout of the infamous 2024 controversy in which the then presiding officer Anil Masih was caught on camera tampering with votes to declare a BJP candidate as the mayor.
