Punjab: AAP secures win in Abohar, Morinda civic bodies; BJP, Congress smell foul play

Chandigarh, July 10 (IANS) The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in Punjab secured a win in the Abohar Municipal Corporation and the Morinda Municipal Council on Friday.

However, both the BJP and the Congress smelled foul play as they claimed that, despite the numbers, an act of strong-arm tactics was carried out by the government functionaries through the misuse of power.

AAP won the posts of Mayor, President and all other key office-bearers in both civic bodies. In the Abohar Municipal Corporation, Ganesh Kumar Sablaniya was elected as the Mayor, while Reshma Bai as the Senior Deputy Mayor and Kiran as the Deputy Mayor. The AAP candidates secured victory with the support of 27 councillors in the 50-member Municipal Corporation.

Similarly, in the Morinda Municipal Council, Jagpal Singh Jolly was elected as the President, Daljeet Kaur Bhichra as the Senior Vice-President and Harjinder Singh Chibber as the Vice-President, giving AAP a clean sweep of all the top positions.

Speaking after the election, the newly elected President of the Morinda Municipal Council, Jagpal Singh Jolly, rejected allegations made by former Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi regarding the councillors.

“All the councillors present here have come of their own free will. No one has been pressured or coerced in any manner. Every councillor has exercised his or her democratic right independently,” he told the media. He said that Member of Parliament Channi was attempting to mislead the public through baseless statements and asserted that such politics of misinformation would not succeed.

“The councillors have wholeheartedly supported the AAP candidates after exercising their democratic rights independently. The people have rejected the politics of falsehood and have once again placed their faith in honest politics,” he said.

Meanwhile, Channi condemned the incidents that took place during the election of the President of the Morinda Municipal Council, describing them as a murder of democracy and an act of strong-arm tactics carried out through the misuse of state power.

He said elected representatives in Punjab are being deprived of their constitutional rights and that the democratic process is being openly trampled upon. Charanjit told the media in his hometown, Morinda, that the Municipal Council consists of 15 councillors, with the local MLA serving as the 16th voting member. Therefore, securing more than eight votes was necessary to elect the President.

He said the Congress had the required majority, and he personally escorted nine Congress councillors from his residence to the Municipal Council office in a single vehicle. After arriving at the office, all the councillors were dropped off and sent inside to participate in the voting process.

He alleged that as soon as the Congress councillors entered the Municipal Council office, they were assaulted by the police, while the Congress candidate for the President’s post, along with three other councillors, was confined to a room and allegedly subjected to physical intimidation. Videos of the incident have also surfaced on social media.

Channi said the Congress councillors repeatedly came to the gate of the Municipal Council office to inform the media and the public that they were being subjected to force and were not being allowed to enter the voting hall. However, instead of ensuring a fair election, the police remained mute spectators, Channi said.

BJP’s National Information and Technology Department in-charge Amit Malviya wrote on X, “When democratic norms are compromised, the usual chorus of self-appointed guardians of democracy is expected to demand answers. “But when the party facing serious questions is AAP, the silence is deafening.”

He said in Abohar, despite the BJP being the single largest party with 28 councillors, the AAP candidate was declared Mayor after a secret ballot that has now come under a cloud. “Serious allegations have been raised: an unexplained postponement of the election, no video recording of the ballot counting, and claims that the Returning Officer simply announced the result without any transparent verification before attempting to leave,” he wrote.

“If even a fraction of these allegations had surfaced in a BJP-ruled state, there would have been wall-to-wall outrage, press conferences, editorials, and lectures on the ‘murder of democracy’. “So where are the usual suspects now? Where are the activists, commentators, and Opposition leaders who never miss an opportunity to sermonise on democratic values?”

Malviya further said, “Democracy cannot have different standards for different political parties. If transparency matters, it must matter irrespective of who is in power. The people of Punjab deserve answers, not selective outrage.”

–IANS

vg/uk