Chandigarh Municipal Corporation: BJP's Kuljeet Sandhu wins senior deputy mayor post in reelection

Chandigarh: BJP's Kuljeet Singh Sandhu was elected to the post of senior deputy mayor in repolls in the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation on Monday.

Election to the post of deputy mayor is underway.

Sandhu secured 19 votes while Congress' Gurpreet Gabi got 16 votes. One vote was declared invalid.

The result was announced by the mayor.

In the 35-member municipal House, the BJP has 17 councillors. The number of BJP's strength increased from 14 to 17 after three AAP councillors switched over to it on February 19. The AAP has 10 members while the Congress has seven. The Shiromani Akali Dal has one councillor.

Chandigarh MP Kirron Kher, who is a BJP member, also has voting rights as an ex-officio member of the corporation.

The Supreme Court on February 20 had overturned the January 30 results of the Chandigarh mayoral poll in which the BJP candidate had emerged an unlikely winner, and declared defeated AAP-Congress alliance candidate Kuldeep Kumar as the city's new mayor.

The process for election for the two posts is being conducted by Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) councillor Kumar who recently assumed the charge of Chandigarh mayor. In the January 30 poll, BJP's Manoj Sonkar had defeated Kumar to become mayor.

Alleging tampering of ballots, councillors of the AAP and the Congress boycotted the elections to the posts of senior deputy mayor and deputy mayor, leading to the victory of Sandhu and Rajinder Sharma then.

This time too the BJP has fielded Sharma for the post of deputy mayor. He is up against Congress' Nirmala Devi.