The BJP on Thursday retained the post of the Mayor of the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation, with its councillor Saurabh Joshi getting elected in a three-cornered contest by securing 18 votes in a House of 36. He is the last mayor as the corporation’s five-year tenure is ending in December.
BJP councillor Suman Sharma was elected as the Deputy Mayor, while the party’s Jasmanpreet Singh was elected as Senior Deputy Mayor, both receiving 18 votes each. The BJP succeeded in bagging the post for the fourth time. However, AAP’s Yogesh Dhingra got 11 votes, and Congress candidate Gurpreet Singh Gabbi received seven votes.
In the past, the INDIA bloc partners, the Congress party and AAP, were in the fray unitedly. This time, both parted ways and contested the mayoral elections separately. Both AAP and the Congress had joined hands in Chandigarh ahead of the 2024 mayoral polls.
The alliance enabled both parties to wrest the mayoral and Lok Sabha seats in 2024, but they lost to the BJP in the 2025 mayoral poll. In the 35-member House, which has no anti-defection law, the BJP has 18 councillors, while there are 11 councillors of the AAP and six of the Congress.
Local Congress MP Manish Tewari, who is an ex officio member, has voting rights. Despite not having a clear majority, the BJP has won the mayoral election thrice in the past four years, largely banking on cross-voting, members switching loyalties and horse-trading.
Last month, the BJP’s strength in the House rose to 18 as two AAP councillors -- Poonam and Suman Sharma -- joined it. Unlike previous polls, the election of the mayor this time was held through a show of hands. Previously, the polls were held through a secret ballot with cross-voting, and they were largely neck and neck.
The election, through a show of hands, was necessitated by an amendment in Regulation 6 of the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation (Procedure and Conduct of Business) Regulations, 1996, approved by Chandigarh Administrator Gulab Chand Kataria in July last year to curb cross-voting and ballot tampering.