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Chandigarh mayoral elections: AAP offers Congress to share chair alternately
As per the proposal, the AAP will have its mayor in the first year of the new Chandigarh municipal corporation House with Congress support, while the Congress will get the post in the next year
Even as both the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Congress have moved their councillors out of Chandigarh, fearing poaching ahead of the mayoral polls on January 8, the proposal for sharing the mayor’s chair alternately between the two parties is on the table, it is learnt.
As per the proposal, the AAP will have its mayor in the first year of the new Chandigarh municipal corporation (MC) House with Congress support, while the Congress will get the post in the next year.
In the House of 36, the AAP and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are running neck to neck with 14 votes each. The Congress with seven and the SAD with one vote are in the position to tilt the balance in favour of any of the two leading parties.
Chandigarh Congress president Subhash Chawla, said, “The AAP approached us with the offer that they will support our candidate in the second and third years if we support their mayoral candidate in the first year of the new House.”
Acknowledging the offer, AAP city chief Prem Garg said, “We proposed that the Congress should support the AAP mayoral candidate in the first year. They are senior to us. Woh humein ek saal guide karein aur saath chalein (They should guide us and walk with us for a year). They can review our performance after one year. If they are not happy with it, we can do as they say.”
Though Chawla ruled out voting for any other party, he said the rival parties’ choice of candidates will be crucial for Congress’ decision: “We are waiting for the candidates that the AAP and the BJP put up for the mayor’s post.” Chawla also denied speculations that the party councillors will abstain from voting.
The BJP has already declared that it will contest all three posts. Meanwhile, SAD’s lone councillor, Hardeep Singh, said the party will take a call on which candidate to support after his meeting with party chief Sukhbir Singh Badal within a couple of days.
AAP, Congress trying to keep flock together
On Monday, the AAP took its 14 councillors, their families and some senior party officials to Delhi.
Similarly, the seven Congress councillors, accompanied by their families, moved to a resort near Jaipur, Rajasthan.
The development came a day after former Congress vice-president Devinder Singh Babla and his wife, councillor Harpreet Kaur, joined the BJP.
While conceding that the councillors had been moved to Delhi as they were being approached by rival parties to vote for them during the mayoral elections, Garg said, “We also wanted our councillors to experience how an elected House works. There is a session of the Delhi legislative assembly and the councillors will be taken there.”
Chawla said, “Both the AAP and the BJP are approaching our councillors. But we decided to move out of the city only to quell rumours and misunderstanding between our councillors. Attempts to mislead them were being made by rival parties. Last night, even though we were all together for a dinner, some councillors were getting calls that one of them was at a rival party’s office.”
On their councillors’ return to the city, AAP’s Garg said it was not decided, though the group was likely to be back after attending the proceedings of the Delhi legislative assembly.
The Congress councillors will return to Chandigarh only a day before the mayor elections on January 8.
Taking a dig at the Congress and the AAP, BJP’s city chief Arun Sood said, “BJP councillors are in the city. They are neither under surveillance nor have their phones been switched off. The parties which fear their councillors are saleable are adopting such tactics.”
