No AAP-Congress tie-up; 3-cornered fight in Chandigarh mayoral poll

Chandigarh (PTI): The upcoming Chandigarh mayoral polls will see a three-cornered contest, with the Aam Aadmi Party on Thursday announcing to go it alone in the election, ruling out any tie-up with the Congress.

The third major power in the election is the BJP. Earlier, the AAP and the Congress had been fighting the elections together.

Elections to the posts of mayor, senior deputy mayor and deputy mayor of the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation will be held on January 29.

AAP leader and Delhi MLA Jarnail Singh on Thursday said the AAP will contest the mayoral poll alone. His party colleague Anurag Dhanda said there is no alliance of the AAP with the Congress anywhere, nor can there ever be any alliance.

"The Congress has looted this country in collusion with the BJP. Against these two parties that have looted the country, the AAP is the real voice of the common man's struggle," Dhanda said on X.

The AAP fielded councillor Yogesh Dhingra for the post of mayor, Munnavar Khan for senior deputy mayor and Jaswinder Kaur for deputy mayor.

On the other hand, the Congress has named Gurpreet Singh Gabi for the post of mayor, Sachin Galav for senior deputy mayor, and Nirmala Devi for deputy mayor.

The BJP has fielded councillor Sourabh Joshi for the post of mayor, Jasmanpreet Singh for senior deputy mayor and Suman Sharma for deputy mayor.

Meanwhile, AAP councillor Ramchandra Yadav filed his nomination papers for the post of deputy mayor as an independent candidate. He clarified that he has not left the party but asserted that it was his right to contest the elections.

This time, the mayoral elections will be conducted by a show of hands instead of the previous practice of a secret ballot.

In the 35-member house of the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation, the BJP has 18 councillors, the AAP has 11, and the Congress has six. The Chandigarh MP also has a voting right as an ex officio member of the 35-member municipal corporation. The sitting MP is Manish Tewari of the Congress.

Nineteen votes are required to win the mayoral polls.

In the present house, Harpreet Kaur Babla, who belongs to the BJP, is the mayor, while Congress's Jasbir Singh Bunty and Taruna Mehta are the senior deputy mayor and deputy mayor, respectively.