BJP's Sarabjit Kaur becomes Chandigarh Mayor, defeats AAP rival by 1 vote
Chandigarh: Sarabjit Kaur of the BJP became the new Chandigarh Mayor on Saturday triggering allegations from the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) that the administration helped the saffron party.
The AAP also accused the Congress whose councillors abstained from voting of having a "hidden alliance" with the BJP.
In the 36-member Municipal Corporation House, 28 votes were polled as the Congress and SAD abstained from voting.
Sarabjit Kaur of the BJP got 14 votes, AAP's Anju Katyal got 13 and one vote was declared invalid.
Seven Congress councillors and the lone SAD members abstained from voting.
The BJP also won the senior deputy mayor poll as BJP's Dalip Sharma polled 15 votes as against AAP's Prem Lata who had 13.
In the results for Chandigarh Municipal Corporation on December 27, AAP had emerged as the single largest party in a hung House with 14 seats with the BJP getting 12.
The Congress had remained third with eight seats while the SAD had won one seat in the 35-member House.
Later, senior Congress leader Devinder Babla along with his councillor wife Harpreet Kaur Babla had joined the BJP.
AAP councillors created a commotion after the counting alleging that the BJP had been favoured in the counting process.
AAP councillors tried to stop the new Mayor from addressing the House. Then, BJP councillors surrounded her Chair and later, marshals were called in who removed both sets of councillors.
Addressing a press conference, senior AAP leader Raghav Chadha alleged that Congress had helped that BJP by first "exporting" one of its councillors to the saffron party and then asking the others to abstain from voting.
"Today, an unholy alliance of the BJP and the Congress has elected BJP's Mayor in Chandigarh," Chadha alleged.
He said that the two political parties will connive again in Punjab to stop the AAP from coming to power there.
He alleged that the officers have also helped the BJP in Saturday's elections.
Earlier, Chadha led the AAP activists to the MC office and held a protest when DC Vinay Pratap Singh refused to meet the AAP leaders.
The AAP activists got angry when the cops on duty asked them to go out of the MC complex. They demanded that either the DC should come out and meet them or they all would court arrest.
