CHANDIGARH: The INDIA bloc arrived at its first pre-poll pact before the parliamentary elections, with Aam Aadmi Party (
AAP
) and
Congress
deciding to team up for the mayoral polls of the Chandigarh municipal corporation, which had been ruled by the BJP for the past eight years.
Following the move, the AAP-Congress combine will have 20 votes (AA and Congress 7) in the MC house against BJP's 15 (14 elected councillors and 1 ex-officio member in the form of city MP).
Elections for the posts of mayor, senior deputy
mayor
and deputy mayor are scheduled to be held on January 18.
As per the seat-sharing formula, the AAP candidate will contest for the top post of mayor, while Congress will field candidates for the two remaining posts of senior deputy mayor and deputy mayor.
Following the official announcement on the collaboration, AAP and Congress nominees (other than those who were retained as per the seat-sharing arrangement) withdrew their nomination papers. While a Congress candidate withdrew papers filed for the post of mayor, AAP nominees for the posts of senior deputy mayor and deputy mayor withdrew their names.
Now, Kuldeep Singh (AAP) is pitted against BJP's Manoj Sonkar for the mayor's post. Gurpreet Singh (Congress) will battle it out with Kuljeet Sandhu (BJP) for the post of senior deputy mayor and Nirmala Devi (Congress) will take on Rajinder Sharma (BJP) for deputy mayor's post.
Jatinder Malhotra, president of Chandigarh BJP, said, "The alliance won't affect us. PM Narendra Modi has done remarkable job for the overall growth of the country, which will help us get maximum votes of councillors. We will win all three seats in Chandigarh mayoral polls."
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