Saurabh Joshi new Chandigarh mayor as BJP walks away with top 3 posts

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate Saurabh Joshi, 44, was elected the new mayor of Chandigarh as a saffron wave swept through the municipal corporation (MC) House on Thursday after the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Congress failed sort out their differences ahead of the annual mayoral elections.

With 18 councillors on their side – in the 36-member house – the BJP also had an easy victory in the elections for the posts of senior deputy mayor and deputy mayor.

BJP’s Jasmanpreet Singh, who is the councillor for ward number 32 (Sector 44 and 51) was elected the senior deputy mayor while councillor Suman Sharma of Ward No. 4 (Manimajra Basti Kishangarh, Basti Bhagwanpura, Pipli Wala Town, Housing Board Duplex Manimajra IT Park) was elected deputy mayor.

Voting started at 11 am with nominated councillor Ramneek Singh Bedi as the presiding officer. In keeping with the amendment to Regulation 6 of the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation (Procedure and Conduct of Business) Regulations, 1996, the voting was done by a show of hands. All councillors, including Member of Parliament (MP) Manish Tewari, who has an ex officio vote in the House, also gave a verbal confirmation after raising their hands.

All councillors voted on party lines and Joshi secured 18 votes in the 36-member house, while Congress candidate Gurpreet Singh Gabbi received seven votes and AAP’s Yogesh Dhingra got 11 votes. AAP rebel Ram Chander Yadav, who was fighting for the deputy mayor’s post as an Independent, withdrew his nomination at the last moment and cast his vote in favour of AAP candidate Jaswinder Kaur.

After the voting for the mayor’s post concluded, and it became clear that Joshi was winning, all six Congress councillors, along with MP Tewari, walked out of the House and abstained from voting for polls of the senior deputy mayor and deputy mayor.

This was for the first time in two years that the Congress and the AAP had fielded separate candidates for these polls, effectively splitting the Opposition vote and handing a photo finish to the saffron party in the final year of the current MC House’s five-year term. This is for the fourth time in the last five years that the BJP has managed to wrest the mayor’s post, despite not having the numbers in the House. The next general elections are scheduled for December this year.