After the lok Sabha election, Chandigarh voters reiterated their faith in Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP in the civic body polls, with party registering a landslide victory and decimating Congress, which was confined to only four seats out of total 26 wards in Chandigarh.
In a major setback to the Congress, its prominent leaders and four former mayors — Subhash Chawla, Harphool Kalyan, Poonam Sharma and Kamlesh — faced defeat in the municipal polls.
While the BJP won 20 seats, its ally SAD managed to win one seat out of the four it contested while BJP rebel Dalip Sharma won as an independent candidate from ward number 19. The BSP failed to open its account as it lost on all 17 seats that it contested.
BJP’s sitting mayor Arun Sood won from ward number 8 by defeating his nearest rival Congress Rajesh Sharma by 2,077 votes.
While the BJP’s Anil Kumar Dube registered highest victory margin of 9,421 votes from ward 24, the
lowest winning margin was 71 votes with which the Congress candidate Ravinder Kaur defeated SAD’s Balwinder Kaur from
Ward 15.
Even as most of the prominent BJP leaders managed to register victory, sitting councillor Saurabh Joshi lost to Congress’ heavyweight Devinder Singh Babla from ward number 18 by a margin of 807 votes.
Among the prominent losers in MC polls are city Congress president Pardeep Chhabra’s wife Ritu Chhabra from ward 3 by a margin of 417 votes, local SAD president Jagjit Singh Kang’s
wife Inderjit Kaur from ward 9, BSP city president Jagir Singh from ward 7.
The civic body’s result is the biggest ever victory for any single political party in the MC since its inception in 1996.
The Municipal Corporation has 36 members, of which 26 are elected councillors, nine are nominated councillors and one is an
MP (ex-officio member of the House).
In 2011 MC polls, the BJP-SAD coalition had won 12 seats, Congress had won 11 seats, BSP two seats
while there was one independent candidate.