Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, December 20

It was a landslide victory for the BJP, which won 20 of the 26 seats in the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation (MC), which went to the polls on Sunday as the results were declared here on Tuesday. The Congress was decimated with only four seats while the BJP ally SAD managed to win only one of the four seats that it contested while BJP rebel Dalip Sharma won as an Independent from Ward 19.

In a major setback to the Congress, which had won nine seats in the 2011 MC polls, its four former mayors– Subhash Chawla, Harphool Kalyan, Poonam Sharma and Kamlesh--faced the defeat.

(Read: MC elections trailer, complete picture after Punjab polls: CM Badal )

While the BJP’s Anil Kumar Dube registered the highest victory margin of 9,421 votes from Ward 24, the lowest winning margin was 71 with which the Congress nominee Ravinder Kaur defeated SAD’s Balwinder Kaur from Ward 15.

BJP’s sitting mayor Arun Sood won from Ward 8 by defeating his nearest rival Rajesh Sharma of the Congress by 2,077 votes.

With the BJP already winning 20 seats and its ally SAD 1, the alliance also has a vote of the local BJP MP Kirron Kher as an ex-officio member in the MC House of 35, which comprises nine councillors with voting rights to be nominated by UT Administrator VP Singh Badnore.

Among the other prominent losers are local Congress president Pardeep Chhabra’s wife Ritu Chhabra from Ward 3, local SAD president Jagjit Singh Kang’s wife Inderjit Kaur from Ward 9, BSP city president Jagir Singh from Ward 7 and sitting councillor Saurabh Joshi of the BJP from Ward 18. The BSP failed to open its account as it lost on all 17 seats that it contested. The Left, which contested as Independents, also lost from all six seats that the party fought.

Party leaders react

Reacting to the poll win, BJP national president Amit Shah congratulated the local leaders and workers saying the party had been winning every election after the note ban.

Local MP Kirron Kher said the voters had endorsed PM Modi's demonetisation move.

Results:



Ward 1: Former Deputy Mayor and Congress candidate Harmohinder Singh Lucky loses by 280 votes to arch rival BJP Mahesh Inder Sidhu.



Ward 2: BJP's former mayor Rajbala Malik wins by 960 votes.



Ward 3: Major jolt to the Congress, city chief Pardeep Chhabra's wife Ritu Chhabra loses to the BJP nominee Ravi Kant Sharma.



Ward 4: Congress heavyweight and former mayor Poonam Sharma loses to BJP's Sunita Dhawan.



Ward 5: Congress candidate Sheela Devi wins.



Ward 6: BJP's Farmila Devi wins.



Ward 7: Congress former mayor Harphool Kalyan loses to BJP's Rajesh Kalia.



Ward 8: BJP Mayor Arun Sood wins by over 1,900 votes.



Ward 9: Congress former deputy mayor Gurbax Rawat wins by over 2,000 votes.



Ward 10: SAD opens account; deputy mayor Hardeep Singh wins by 3,500 votes.



Ward 11: BJP candidate Satish Kainth wins by over 1,000 votes.



Ward 12: BJP candidate Chandrawati Shukla wins by 800 votes.



Ward 13: BJP's former senior deputy mayor Heera Negi wins by 1,600 votes.



Ward 14: BJP's Kanwarjeet Singh Rana wins.



Ward 15: Congress candidate Ravinder Kaur Gujral wins.



Ward 16: Congress former mayor Subhash Chawla loses to BJP's Rajesh Kumar Gupta by 1,013 votes.



Ward 17: BJP's Asha Jaswal wins.



Ward 18: Congress heavyweight Davinder Babla wins, BJP's Saurabh Joshi loses.



Ward 19: BJP rebel Dalip Sharma wins as Independent.



Ward 20: Shakti Prakash Devshali wins, defeats Congress nominee Shashi Shankar Tiwari by 810 votes.



Ward 21: BJP candidate Gurpreet Dhillon wins. He defeated Congress nominee Jatinder Bhatia. Dhillon, former city BJYM president.



Ward 22: BJP senior deputy mayor Davesh Moudgil wins by over 2,500 votes.



Ward 23: Congress former mayor Kamlesh loses to Bharat Kumar of the BJP.



Ward 24: Anil Dubey of BJP wins by 5,000 votes.



Ward 25: BJP’s Jagtar Singh wins by over 6,500 votes.



Ward 26: BJP's Vinod wins by 2204 votes.



Tweets from senior BJP leaders





Thank you to the people of Chandigarh for supporting @BJP4India & @Akali_Dal_. This shows the importance people attach to good governance. — Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) December 20, 2016

Congratulations to people of Chandigarh & BJP Karyakartas on a landslide victory in the Chandigarh MC elections. Well done! @BJP4Chandigarh — Arun Jaitley (@arunjaitley) December 20, 2016

Chandigarh traditionally reflects the national mood. — Arun Jaitley (@arunjaitley) December 20, 2016

BJP's landslide win in Chandigarh is yet another instance of people reposing their faith in BJP's development politics and PM Modi's vision. — Amit Shah (@AmitShah) December 20, 2016