Chandigarh MC polls: BJP asks five more rebel candidates to leave

BJP Chandigarh president Arun Sood, taking a serious note of the “anti-party” activities, expelled Gopal Attri (Ward 3), Sohan Singh (Ward 8), Suresh Gupta (Ward 15), Sunita Sharma (Ward 21), Kulmeet Singh (Ward 17) and JJ Singh (Ward 35) with immediate effect

A day after expelling five rebel candidates, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) cracked the whip against five more candidates on Tuesday.

Ten AAP members after joining the saffron fold in the presence of state BJP president Arun Sood, former state chief Sanjay Tandon and mayor Ravi Kant Sharma at the party’s office in Sector 33, Chandigarh, on Tuesday. (Keshav Singh/HT)

Party president Arun Sood, taking a serious note of the “anti-party” activities, expelled Gopal Attri (Ward 3), Sohan Singh (Ward 8), Suresh Gupta (Ward 15), Sunita Sharma (Ward 21), Kulmeet Singh (Ward 17) and JJ Singh (Ward 35) with immediate effect.

Attri, Sohan and Suresh are contesting the Chandigarh municipal corporation elections as independent candidates. Sharma is contesting from a Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) ticket, Kulmeet from Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and JJ Singh from Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).

On Monday, the party had shown the door to Gurpreet Singh Happy (Ward 9), Kripanand Thakur (Ward 20), Narender Chaudhary (Ward 26), Mukesh Goyal and Ashwani Gupta (Ward 32). All of them are in the fray as independent candidates against the party’s official candidates.

Meanwhile, four rebel candidates have returned to the party fold. But even with senior party functionaries working overtime to get the rebel candidates to withdraw their nominations, the ruling party is still facing challenge from a dozen-odd more.

Several functionaries of the AAP joined the saffron cadre on Tuesday. The top leaders, including AAP’s state vice-president Arun Goyal, state vice-president Sunil Shingari, executive member Rakhi Sharma, state general secretary Gulshan Kapoor, Adarsh Goyal, Vijay Puri, Charanjit Kumar, Mohan Lal, Sarojini and Vinod Sharma joined the BJP in the presence of state BJP president Arun Sood, former BJP state president Sanjay Tandon, mayor Ravi Kant Sharma, party spokesperson Kailash Jain and former mayor Poonam at a function held at Kamalam, the BJP office in Sector 33.