Chandigarh mayoral polls: Deeply concerned about horse-trading, says Supreme Court

The Supreme Court on Monday said it was deeply concerned about “horse-trading which is taking place” after the mayoral election in Chandigarh, Bar and Bench reported.

The top court proposed that the result of the election be declared by counting the present ballot papers rather than holding fresh polls.

It also said that the presiding officer, Anil Masih, should be prosecuted for interfering with the election process. Masih told the court that he had put marks on eight ballot papers during the counting process.

A bench of Chief Justice DY Chandrachud, JP Pardiwala and Manoj Misra made the remarks on a day when three Aam Aadmi Party councillors – Neha Musawat, Poonam Devi and Gurcharan Kala – joined the Bharatiya Janata Party. With this, the BJP’s councillors in a 35-member civic body have risen to 17, bringing its tally close to a majority.

During the mayoral polls that took place on January 30 in Chandigarh, Manoj Sonkar from the BJP had won 16 votes and defeated Kuldeep Kumar Tita, the joint candidate fielded by the Aam Aadmi Party and the Congress. Tita had bagged 12 votes.

However, this was after eight votes from the Opposition alliance were declared invalid, which triggered protests by the supporters of the Aam Aadmi Party and the Congress against Masih.

Tita approached the...

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