E-Paper
BJP’s Krishan Lal Lamba elected Kalka MC president
The Kalka MC president-elect Krishan Lal Lamba, a catering business owner, defeated independent candidate Pawan Kumari by a margin of 6,400 votes
Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) Krishan Lal Lamba was elected the president of the Kalka municipal council (MC) after beating his nearest rival by a margin of over 6,400 votes in the recently-conducted polls.
The 62-year-old Class-10 pass-out, who runs a catering business of his own, beat independent candidate Pawan Kumari — who was supported by Congress MLA Pradeep Choudhary — and AAP’s Ghanshyam Tagra, who came in second and third in polls respectively. The counting was done at Smt Aruna Asaf Ali Government College, Kalka, starting around 8 am and took place in atotal of 15 rounds for 31 wards of Kalka.
The election of the MC president was held directly for the first time, with as many as eight persons contesting for the post. With the Congress party opting not to field any candidate for the MC president, the contest was between Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), BJP and independents.
Independents put up strong fight
Independent candidates put up a strong fight against BJP in the poll. Of the total 31 wards, BJP candidates bagged 18 seats, whereas 13 seats were bagged by independent candidates, as per the administration.
Among notable results, independent Ujala Bakshi won by a margin of 1,359 votes from ward number 31, while BJP’s Pushpinder Kumar won by a margin of 549 votes from war number 2.
Ward number 3 saw Manju Lata by a margin of 97 votes. Vinod Saavarni won from ward number 4 (177 votes), Narender Singh from ward number 5 (480 votes), Mahesh Sharma from ward number 6 (352 votes) and Sanjeev Kaushal from ward number 7 won by a margin of 517 votes.
Candidates Nirmala Devi from ward number 10, Saurabh Gupta from ward number 11, Gurmukh Singh from ward number 13, Shabnam ward number 14, Sudarshan Kansal of ward number 16, Rekha Devi from ward number 17 and Maninder Kaur from ward number 19 also emerged victorious.
BJP’s Gulshan Thakur bagged the ward number 20 seat with a slender margin of 90 votes. Others to eke out close wins included Pawan Kumar from ward number 23, Kapil Gaur from ward number 27, Neha Budakoti from ward number 29 and Shalu won from ward number 30.
From ward number 1, independent candidate Baninder Kaur won with the difference of 191 votes. Independent candidates won from wards number 8 and 9.
In ward number 12, 22 and 24, independent candidates Ashwani Kumar, Kulwinder Kaur and Sunil Kumar logged comfortable wins with margins of 483, 519 and 505 votes respectively.
Seema from ward number 15, Geeta Devi from ward number 21,, (505), Ravi Chaudhary from ward 25, Kapil Ghai from ward number 26 and Krishan Lal from ward number 28 also managed to scrape by.
The polls, which took place on Sunday for 31 wards and the post of president recorded a 68.2% voter turnout.
The elections, held for the first time since 2010, were conducted peacefully.
