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Chandigarh MC: Congress, AAP skip councillors meeting called by mayor
Congress and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) councillors skipped the first meeting called by newly-elected Chandigarh mayor Sarabjit Kaur at the community centre in Sector 38W on Wednesday
Congress and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) councillors skipped the first meeting called by mayor Sarabjit Kaur at the community centre in Sector 38W on Wednesday.
The meeting, termed as a “briefing session”, was called to sensitise the newly elected councillors about various aspects of the MC and its functioning. Senior MC officials were present during the meeting and introduced themselves to the councillors.
Both AAP and Congress expressed unhappiness over the way the meeting was called by the mayor. A senior AAP leader said that the mayor has no right to call a meeting, as her election is sub-judice and such a meeting should have been held in MC building itself.
The Congress also maintained that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) mayor must first take other parties on board before calling meetings.
In the House of 35 councillors, 13 are from BJP, 14 from AAP, seven from Congress and oner from Shiromani Akali Dal. The mayoral election, which was held on January 8, was marred by heavy ruckus in the House after one vote of AAP was declared void resulting in BJP’s victory.
Immediately after her election, mayor had stated that she would take everybody along, over and above political affiliations.
But on Wednesday, the political gulf among the three parties once again came into open. Congress president Subhash Chawla, said, “She is a minority and not a majority mayor. The BJP should bring minimum common programme of all the parties. We are not here for BJP’s agendas, but for city’s development.”
Chandigarh AAP president Prem Garg, said, “It was not an official meeting. An official meeting has to be in the MC building. We do not recognise the mayor as the mayoral election was held fraudulently.”
AAP has also challenged Kaur’s election in the Punjab and Haryana high court and the case is scheduled to come up for hearing on Thursday.
Mayor Sarabjit Kaur maintained, “Rising above party lines, I tried to get councillors of all the parties on board and called up each of the councillors. It’s always the mayor who has called introductory meetings in the past. The meeting was called in a community centre in view of the surge in Covid cases.”
