SC Appoints Retired Judge to Oversee Chandigarh Mayor Election Amid AAP's Transparency Plea

Chandigarh (The Uttam Hindu): The Supreme Court has ordered the appointment of a retired judge as the observer for the Chandigarh Mayor election. The court gave this decision while hearing the case on Friday. Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader and current Mayor Kuldeep Kumar had filed a petition demanding transparency in the election process. While demanding voting by raising hands, he said that in the last mayor election the election officer had rigged the election and made BJP win. Kuldeep Singh's lawyer Fari Sofat said that the apex court has fixed January 27, 2025 as the date for the next hearing of the case. Voting for the mayoral election will be held on January 30. Tomorrow is the last day of the nomination process. AAP had gone to the High Court citing the proposal.

Earlier, this matter had reached the Punjab and Haryana High Court. In the High Court, they had told that on October 29, a proposal was passed in the Municipal Corporation that the election of the Mayor would be done by raising hands. The court said that the administration should reconsider it because the proposal has been passed. The administration has not yet approved it. After this they reached the Supreme Court. The second challenge he gave was regarding holding elections on 24 January. Then the court had ordered to hold elections by 29 January.

BJP has declared its candidate

for the post of Mayor. BJP has nominated Harpreet Kaur Babla for the post of Mayor while the names of Senior Deputy Mayor Bimla Dubey and Deputy Mayor Lakhbir Singh Billu have been finalised. Congress and Aam Aadmi Party are contesting the elections together. The post of Mayor will go to AAP and the posts of Senior Deputy Mayor and Deputy Mayor will go to Congress. 6 women councillors of AAP have presented their candidature for the post of Mayor.

Prem Lata, Jaswinder Kaur and Anju Katyal are leading in the race for the ticket, while from the Congress the name of Jasbir Singh Bunty for the post of senior deputy mayor and Taruna Mehta for the post of deputy mayor have been declared.

BJP won the last mayor election due to the election officer's mistake.

Before this, the mayor election was held in 2023. Then AAP-Congress had a majority. Then the election officer Anil Masih made a mistake and declared the votes of 8 councilors of AAP-Congress invalid. Due to which AAP's mayor candidate Kuldeep Kumar lost the election. Then Manoj Sonkar of BJP, who got 16 votes including the votes of 13 BJP councilors, MP and Akali Dal, was declared the winner. AAP approached the Supreme Court against this. When the court saw the CCTV footage of the election, election officer Anil Masih was seen marking the votes of AAP-Congress councillors. The court accepted that Masih had deliberately spoiled the votes. After this, the Supreme Court asked for recounting of votes, in which it also ordered counting of the votes declared invalid. After this, Kuldeep Kumar of AAP became the mayor.