The Bharatiya Janta Party‘s (BJP) Manoj Sonkar won the Chandigarh mayoral elections on Tuesday, the first election battle against the INDIA bloc by defeating the Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) Kuldeep Kumar.

Meanwhile, BJP secured 16 votes for its major candidate Manoj Sonkar and Kuldeep Singh, the joint candidate of Congress and AAP managed 12 votes. 8 votes were declared invalid.

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BJP Wins Mayor Elections In Chandigarh

After BJP’s Manoj won the Chandigarh mayor election, a commotion broke out in the House. Congress and AAP councilors accused the BJP of cheating and not following the due electoral process. Reacted to the allegations of AAP, newly-elected Chandigarh Mayor Manoj Sonkar said that leveling allegations is the AAP-Congress job.

“Wherever they don’t have their way, they level allegations…Everything is on camera. But when they couldn’t digest their defeat, they created this atmosphere and started blaming us,” Sonkar said. He further alleged that AAP-Congress leaders started tearing ballot papers and jostling people around after the name of the Mayor was announced.

“They started tearing ballot papers and jostling people around after the name of the Mayor was announced…When they can’t run a small city, how can they run a state?… Let them do the press conference, we are not wrong. We have won the election,” he added. The polls were conducted today after the presiding officer fell ill on the initial date, January 8 of holding the polls.

The fresh scheduling of the elections, which AAP MP Raghav Chadha described as the first direct electoral contest between the BJP and the Opposition bloc–INDIA–happened on the order of the Punjab-Haryana High Court.
The Punjab and Haryana High Court on January 24, 2024, announced the decision to hold the Chandigarh Mayoral Elections on January 30 and also vested the responsibility for security in the Chandigarh Police.

Source: ANI

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