Chandigarh MC elections: AAPsurge, a hung house and setbacks

Debutant Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) emerged the leading outfit in the Chandigarh municipal corporation (MC) elections, winning 14 of 35 seats, but fell short of five seats for a simple majority, thus throwing up a hung House.

The incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), meanwhile, was reduced to 12 councillors while the Congress won eight seats and Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) managed one. The AAP, which had its first major electoral win outside Delhi, will need 19 councillors to install a mayor while the BJP, which has the advantage of one vote of sitting MP Kirron Kher in the House, would need 18 councillors to do so.

Major jolt to BJP

For the BJP, it was a major jolt as seven of its sitting councillors, including incumbent mayor Ravi Kant Sharma and two former mayors Davesh Moudgil and Rajesh Kalia, lost their seats. Sharma lost to AAP’s Daman Preet Singh by 828 votes while Moudgil was trumped by Jasbir Singh of AAP by 939 votes. Kalia could secure only 3,139 votes and came third after Jatinder Kumar of Congress (4,384 votes) and seat was won by Kuldeep Kumar, who secured 5824 votes.

The four other councillors who lost are Shakti Devshali, Sunita Dhawan, Heera Negi and Bharat Kumar.

Big losses for Congress too

Among Congress bigwigs, party’s chief spokesperson and former councillor HS Lucky and former mayor Kamlesh have lost the election; including two sitting councillors, Satish Kumar Kainth, a former deputy mayor and Ravinder Kaur Gujral. Local Congress chief Subhash Chawala’s son, Sumit Chawla stood third from Ward number 14 with only 2,532 votes. Here, BJP candidate Kuljeet Singh Sandhu won by a margin of 255 votes against AAP’s Kuldeep Singh. Lone upsetting result in AAP was of election campaign committee head, Chander Mukhi Sharma, who lost the election by 285 votes to former NSUI leader and first timer, Sachin Galav.

The closest fight seen in the election was of Gurpreet Singh of Congress, who defeated Bhupinder Sharma of BJP by nine votes. The second closest contest was between Suman Devi of AAP and Savita Gupta of BJP, where the margin was only of 12 votes. Sitting BJP councillor Maheshinder Singh Sidhu also won by a narrow margin of 11 votes against Harmohinder Singh Lucky.

A significant win for AAP

All 14, who have won in AAP are first-timers and most among them are rebels from the Congress and BJP. The AAP’s win is significant, as this was its first MC election. The party had unsuccessfully contested Lok Sabha elections in 2019 and 2014. In 2019, Harmohan Dhawan, ended up losing his security deposit as he could manage to get only 13,781 votes, which was 3% of the total polled. In 2014, AAP’s Gul Panag had bagged 1,08,679 votes.

Riding on “freebies” announced on different occasions, AAP ran a boisterous campaign having a head start with the announcements of “guarantees,” and taking a major share of outdoor advertisement spaces. Though Delhi chief minister, Arvind Kejriwal and MP Bhagwant Mann had put in brief appearances, it roped in many other senior leaders from Delhi, including nine MLAs, who oversaw overall campaign. The party cashed in on farmers’ protests, rising prices and “poor management” during Covid-19 outbreak.

Star campaigners fail to work magic for BJP

On the other hand, BJP had roped in chief ministers from Himachal Pradesh and Haryana and other leaders from Punjab, Uttarakhand, Delhi and even from eastern states to woo a huge voter base of migrants in colonies. BJP’s campaign remained centered around its “development” of past five years, Hindutva with slogans of Jai Shri Ram and references to Ayodhya temple was also often used in rallies. The party, also left no stone unturned to showcase Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “work” and “image”. But it failed to impress the voters.

Rebels spoil it for Congress

The Congress, which has won in the majority of elections of civic body since its inception, ran a fledgling campaign. It failed to rope in leaders from Punjab. PPCC chief, Navjot Sidhu and chief minister, Charanjit Singh Channi, did not attend even a single rally, even as the city has a huge voter base from the state. Some rallies though were held by leaders from Haryana and Himachal Pradesh. Rebellion within the party, is also appears to have led to the drubbing. The party lost its former local unit chief Pardeep Chhabra to the AAP, who took along him over a dozen local faces and gave organisational strength to AAP.

Counting peaceful

The counting started at 9am and remained largely peaceful. Recounting of votes had to be done in Ward number-4 where AAP’s Suman Devi won by a margin of 12 votes against Savita Gupta of BJP. Voting took place on December 24 in which 60.78% of the total 6.33 lakh voters cast their votes. As many as 203 candidates were in the fray with the ruling BJP, the opposition Congress and debutant AAP putting up candidates on all 35 seats. In the outgoing MC House, of the total 26 seats, the BJP had 20 councillors, Congress five and the Shiromani Akali Dal one. The number of wards had been increased this time after delimitation and merger of rural areas in MC.