Chandigarh To Bring More Bad News For BJP, May Lose Control Over Municipal Corporation With Entry Of Manish Tewari As MP

The Chandigarh Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which has been reeling from its Lok Sabha candidate Sanjay Tandon’s defeat to the INDI Alliance’s Manish Tewari, now faces another challenge.

Tewari’s victory also means that now BJP will lose its control over the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation, as per a report by The Indian Express.

Prior to the Lok Sabha elections, the 36-member house consisted of 14 BJP councillors, 13 Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) councillors, seven Congress councillors, and one Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) councillor, along with BJP MP Kirron Kher.

For the BJP, this ensured 16 votes — 14 from its councillors, one from its MP, and one from the then SAD councillor Hardeep Singh, as the two parties were allies.

With Tewari now as ex-officio member, replacing Kher, the combined votes of AAP and Congress exceed those of the BJP.

Additionally, Hardeep Singh’s switch to AAP has increased the party’s strength in the civic house to 14. With Congress’s seven councillors and Tewari as MP, the AAP-Congress alliance now has 22 votes out of 36, giving them the upper hand in passing key agendas.

The AAP-Congress alliance, which previously struggled to advance proposals related to free water or parking at budget meetings, can now rely on the support of AAP Mayor Kuldeep Kumar and Tewari.

Although the senior deputy and deputy mayor are from the BJP, they cannot introduce new agendas.

Earlier, the Supreme Court had declared Kuldeep Kumar, the candidate of the AAP-Congress combine, as the winner of the Chandigarh Mayor polls, overturning the earlier victory of the BJP amidst allegations of ballot tampering.

The controversy arose after the returning officer Anil Masih had invalidated eight votes from the AAP-Congress alliance candidate, sparking widespread allegations of tampering with the ballots.

The apex court had criticised Masih, and directed the invalidated ballots to be treated as valid.