Having been made to bite the dust by greenhorns during the Mohali Municipal Council elections, results of which were declared yesterday, the shell-shocked heavyweights today got down to the task of determining where did it went wrong. Most of them are of the view that the delimitation of wards carried out this time proved to be their undoing.
Kulwant Singh, ex-president of the Mohali Municipal Council who had been returned to the House twice earlier, said that insecure political forces who feared his rising political clout and jealous business rivals had managed to get the majority of forces working against him in his ward. ”This is a part of life and not the end of it. I have become stronger mentally and would further strengthen it in the coming time with the grace of God,” he said.
Sham Bansal, former councilor, who lost from ward no 2, said that last time his ward number was 3 and the area where he worked for five years was divided into four parts during the delimitation and half of the ward no. 2 was added in it - making it ward no 2. He said that he and R.P. Sharma were close friends but they became rivals in the elections and it had affected their relationship also.
In ward no. 8, another heavyweight and two-time winner Nand Kishore Marwaha lost to a new face - Harmanpreet Singh Prince. He also said that the prime cause of the loss was addition of new area in the ward which was earlier in some other ward. He said that as the residents of the new area knew nothing of his working style or what he had done for his ward, he lost a considerable number of votes.
However he also alleged that alleged heavy bogus voting in his ward had played no less significant part in his defeat. He lamented that while he had made a written complaint to the presiding officer about booth-capturing in his ward, no action was taken. He said that his polling agent was sent out of the poling room twice and he himself went inside the room to stop this.
Two-time winner Daljit Kaur, contesting this time from ward no. 31, also blamed ”heavy fake poling” in her ward for her defeat. She said that she had collected some proofs which she would disclose in her election petition. Indu Sehgal, two-time winner and heavyweight in Mohali politics, said that bogus voting had brought her downfall. ”But it hardly matters whether I am an MC or not as I will continue to work for the welfare of the people of my ward,” she said.
Amrik Singh Mohali and Manmohan Kaur, both having won twice earlier from their respective wards, were also made to bite the dust by much younger candidates.
Both these leaders were from the SAD and none of them agreed to opt out of the fray resulting in the party’s vote share getting divided. Amrik Singh Mohali said that Madanpur village which was added into his ward had led to his defeat where migrant labourers voted in large numbers.
Posted By Staff Reporter
in Punjab News
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