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Cong finalises Mohali MC poll list, Balbir Sidhu’s brother in fray
The party is yet to officially announce the names
The Congress has finalised its list of 50 candidates for the Mohali municipal corporation (MC) elections with Punjab cabinet minister Balbir Singh Sidhu’s brother, Amarjeet Singh Sidhu, also in the fray, it has been learnt. The party has yet to officially announce the names.
Amarjeet, who was recently appointed director of the SAS Nagar Central Cooperative Bank Limited, will be contesting from ward number 10 in the elections scheduled for February next year.
Of the 50 candidates, the Congress has retained 14 of its 15 sitting councillors, with 35 new faces.
A four-cornered battle will now be fought between the Aam Aadmi Party, the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The three other parties have yet to begin the process to finalise the candidates.
According to Parvinder Singh Sohana, president, Youth Akali Dal, Mohali, some names had been finalised and the list will be confirmed in the next two weeks. “We will be contesting elections under our leader, former mayor Kulwant Singh,” he said.
Sohana said he was hopeful of a win as “people of Mohali had seen what the Congress had done for the city. “Even in the nationwide Swachh Survekshan ranking, Mohali slipped to 157 rank out of 382 cities. The city even slipped to seventh position in the state from fifth position last year,” he said
Senior Congress leader and former councillor Kuljeet Singh Bedi confirmed the finalisation of the list and the ward Sidhu will be contesting from. “The campaigning will begin soon,” he said.
Claiming that the Congress was ready for the elections, Balbir Singh Sidhu, who is also the local MLA, said Mohali residents had seen development in the past few years and they were hopeful of winning the elections with a clear majority.
The last five-year term of the civic body ended in April 26 this year.
In the 2015 elections, 27 councillors, including 10 from the Azad group, 15 from Congress and two independent councillors elected Kulwant Singh, then an independent, as the mayor.
The remaining 23 councillors belonged to the SAD-BJP alliance. Singh later joined the SAD in August 2017.
There are 43 general category seats, of which 23 are reserved for women and 20 for men. Five seats have been reserved for scheduled caste candidates.
