Kuldeep Kumar takes over as Mayor of Chandigarh after Supreme Court’s decision

AAP councilor Kuldeep Kumar on Wednesday took charge as mayor of Chandigarh Municipal Corporation, more than a week after the Supreme Court declared him the municipal chief. On this occasion, senior leaders of Congress and AAP including Pawan Bansal, HS Lucky, SS Ahluwalia, Pradeep Chhabra and many councilors were present.

On 20 February, the Supreme Court declared Kumar as the new Mayor of Chandigarh after overturning the result of the mayoral election in which the BJP candidate had emerged as the winner.

It had also ordered the prosecution of election returning officer Anil Masih, a BJP leader, for his “misconduct” after serious flaws were found in the conduct of the January 30 election, after which BJP’s Manoj Sonkar was declared the winner. I went. He defeated the AAP-Congress alliance candidate after the returning officer declared eight votes of alliance partners invalid, alleging ballot tampering.

Sonkar clearly defeated Kumar by getting 16 votes against his rival’s 12 votes. Later councilors of AAP and Congress boycotted the elections for the posts of Senior Deputy Mayor and Deputy Mayor, leading to the victory of BJP candidates Kuljeet Sandhu and Rajinder Sharma respectively.

Kumar, who was the joint candidate of AAP and Congress, had initially moved the Punjab and Haryana High Court against the declaration of the mayoral election results on January 30. With no interim relief received, he moved the Supreme Court to cancel the election of the BJP candidate.