The Congress suffered a setback ahead of the Mayoral election in Chandigarh as the party’s councillor ,Gurbaksh Rawat, joined the BJP. Mr Rawat – councillor for Ward number 27 — is also the leader of the party in the house.<\/p>\n

The Congress, which had seven councillors, is now left with six. The number of BJP councillors has increased to 16.<\/p>\n

Mr Rawat joined the BJP in the presence of Chandigarh BJP president Jatinder Pal Malhotra and senior party leader Sanjay Tandon at party’s office “Kamalam” in Chandigarh.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Earlier today, the Supreme Court said that it would name an independent observer for the mayoral election, which is due on January 30.<\/p>\n

Last week, the court considered appointing an observer to ensure “free and fair” election and indicated that a retired high court judge can be appointed.<\/p>\n

The mayoral election in Chandigarh has been marked by bizarre and frequent twists.<\/p>\n

Last year, the returning officer was caught on camera invalidating eight votes by tampering with the ballot papers that had initially led to a huge benefit to the BJP. He even made false statements before a Supreme Cour bench and later, had to tender an unconditional apology.<\/p>\n

This time, Chandigarh Mayor, AAP’s Kuldeep Kumar, had approached the Supreme Court requesting that the election be held by ‘show of hands’ instead of ‘secret ballot’ to ensure fairness.<\/p>\n

Ahead of last year’s election, two AAP councillors had quit and joined the BJP, but returned to the party fold within a month.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

\u200bThe Congress suffered a setback ahead of the Mayoral election in Chandigarh as the party’s councillor ,Gurbaksh Rawat, joined the BJP. Mr Rawat – councillor for Ward number 27 — is also the leader of the party in the house.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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