Mayor, councillors take oath in Panchkula

On December 30, after a closely-contested mayoral election, Goyal had trumped Congress’ Upinder Kaur Ahluwalia by 2,057 votes

The newly-elected mayor of Panchkula, Kulbhushan Goyal of Bharatiya Janata Party, along with 20 councillors of the municipal corporation, on Tuesday, took oath at the PWD Rest House here.

Bharatiya Janata Party’s Kulbhushan Goyal taking oath as the new mayor of Panchkula at PWD Rest House on Tuesday. (SANT ARORA/HT)

Haryana assembly speaker and Panchkula MLA Gian Chand Gupta was also present at the ceremony.

On December 30, after a closely-contested mayoral election, Goyal had trumped Congress’ Upinder Kaur Ahluwalia by 2,057 votes in his first success at electoral politics. Fighting the assembly elections on the INLD ticket, he had lost to Gupta in 2014. He later joined BJP in 2019.

As the BJP also secured a majority in the 20-member MC House by winning 11 seats in alliance with the Jannayak Janata Party, the term seems like a cakewalk for the new mayor, whose party is in power in the state and at the Centre as well. The Congress won seven seats; the other two went to independent candidates.

The councillors who also took oath on Tuesday include Narinder Pal Singh Lubana (BJP) from ward 1, Suresh Kumar Verma (BJP) from ward 2, Ritu (BJP) of ward 3, Sonia Sood (BJP) of ward 4, Jai Kumar Kaushik (BJP) of ward 5, Pankaj (Congress) of ward 6, Usha Rani (Congress) of ward 7, Harinder Malik (BJP) of ward 8, Rajesh Kumar (JJP) of ward 9, Gurmail Kaur (Congress) of ward 10.

Other councilors are Omwati Punia (independent) ward 11, Sonu (BJP) of ward 12, Suneet Kumar (BJP) of ward 13, Sushil Garg (JJP) of ward 14, Gautam Parsad (Congress) of ward 15, Rakesh Kumar (BJP) of ward 16, Akshay (Congress) of ward 17, Sandeep Singh (Congress) of ward 18, Paramjeet Kaur (Independent) of ward 19 and Salim (Congress) of ward 20.