Chandigarh:

The Aam Aadmi Party exploded Tuesday after the Bharatiya Janata Party eased to a surprise win in the Chandigarh mayoral election. AAP boss Arvind Kejriwal accused the BJP of “dishonesty” and senior leader Raghav Chadha labelled the poll results “an act of treason (desh droh)”.

The BJP’s Manoj Sonkar was elected Mayor after winning 16 of a possible 36 votes. The AAP’s Kuldeep Kumar was second with 12. Eight were deemed “invalid” and are at the heart of a growing row, with the AAP accusing presiding officer Anil Masih of deliberately invalidating those ballots.

“The manner in which dishonesty has been done in broad daylight in the Chandigarh mayor elections is extremely worrying. If these people can stoop so low in a mayor’s election, then they can go to any extent in the country’s elections. This is very worrying…” Mr Kejriwal posted on X.

चंडीगढ़ मेयर चुनाव में दिन दहाड़े जिस तरह से बेईमानी की गई है, वो बेहद चिंताजनक है। यदि एक मेयर चुनाव में ये लोग इतना गिर सकते हैं तो देश के चुनाव में तो ये किसी भी हद तक जा सकते हैं। ये बेहद चिंताजनक है।

— Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) January 30, 2024

Addressing reporters after the results, Raghav Chadha claimed that all eight votes declared “invalid” by Mr Masih had been for his party’s candidate. Had those votes counted, the AAP would have won.

“This is an act of treason (desh droh). Our eight votes declared (invalid)… not one vote of BJP was declared invalid,” he said, “When a vote is declared invalid, the Presiding Officer has to show agents of all parties (the ballot paper). But today this didn’t happen…” the AAP Rajya Sabha MP said.

“… neither the election agent nor Deputy Commissioner was shown the ballot paper before it was declared invalid. If they can do this for mayoral polls, imagine what they can do in Lok Sabha polls.”

“Does the BJP want to turn India into North Korea?” he continued, demanding that Mr Masih, who is also a member of the BJP’s Minority Cell, be arrested.

The BJP, meanwhile, has responded with a message of congratulations for its Chandigarh unit.

Congratulations to @BJP4Chandigarh Unit for winning the Mayor election. Under the leadership of Prime Minister Shri @narendramodi Ji, UTs have witnessed record development. That the INDI Alliance fought their first electoral battle and still lost to BJP shows that neither their…

— Jagat Prakash Nadda (@JPNadda) January 30, 2024

Party boss JP Nadda posted, “Under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modiji, union territories have witnessed record development. That the INDI Alliance fought their first electoral battle, and still lost to BJP, shows neither their arithmetic is working nor their chemistry.”

The Chandigarh election was to have been a landmark first win for the INDIA bloc, which is meant to unite the opposition to defeat the BJP in the Lok Sabha election. It was also meant to resolve seat-sharing squabbles between the INDIA members ahead of similar talks for the general election.

Specifically, the AAP and the Congress had reached an understanding for this election; the former was to contest the mayoral race and the latter was to fight for the two deputy posts.

In each instance, the AAP and Congress councillors were to vote for each other, ensuring a maximum of 20 votes and a straightforward sweep of this election. However, it hasn’t worked out that way.

Ultimately, though, the loss has further weakened the opposition group, which is already on the edge of collapse after two of its biggest members – Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool and Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United) walked out. In the latter case, Nitish’s switch to the BJP made matters worse.

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