Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate Anup Gupta managed to defeat his rival Jasbir Singh Laddi from Aam Aadmi Party in the election for the post of the mayor of Chandigarh. Anup Gupta managed to scrap through by a margin of 1 vote. A total of 29 votes were polled with Gupta getting 15 votes and Laddi ending up with 14.
Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and Congress chose to abstain from the voting that was held today, January 17. The city beautiful continues to have a BJP mayor as they had won last year’s election as well. At that time, BJP’s Sarabjit Kaur had defeated AAP’s Anju Katyal by the same margin of 1 vote.
Both BJP and AAP have 14 councillors each in the House, while Chandigarh MP also has a vote being an ex-officio member of the municipal corporation House. BJP’s Kirron Kher is the current member of parliament from the city. Congress has 6 councillors while SAD has a single member. However, both those parties chose to abstain from the voting, leaving it as a direct fight between BJP and AAP once again.
“I thank my party leadership for their faith in me as they chose me as the candidate for this post. I will run the House with the same dignity that our previous mayor did,” Gupta said after winning the election.
Anup Gupta had served as the deputy mayor after the previous election. 38-year-old businessman Gupta is the councillor from ward 11, which covers sectors 18,19, and 21. He was first elected as a councillor in 2021.
The elections for the senior deputy mayor and deputy mayor will be held later in the day.