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AAP leader and Rajya Sabha member Raghav Chadha on Tuesday termed the Chandigarh mayoral polls as "unconstitutional and illegal" while calling it an act of "deshdroh" (treason) and demanded action against the presiding officer and a criminal case against him.
He accused the BJP of "orchestrating" the hijacking of the polling after sensing its defeat in the election. Raghav said first the presiding officer was made to fall ill and later BJP appointed its minority wing leader Anil Masih as the presiding officer. "Victory of our alliance was certain, but sensing imminent defeat, the BJP hatched conspiracies. First, the presiding officer, who was to conduct polls on January 18, was made to fall ill. Thereafter an attempt was made to buy councillors of the AAP. When BJP's 'operation lotus' failed, then they did fraud (in the mayoral polls)," said Chadha. "BJP's presiding officer did not allow any election agent of any party to come forward during counting of votes. Whenever counting takes place, election agents of parties are allowed to come. Then after the BJP's presiding officer inked the ballot paper using his pen and then declared them invalid during the counting of votes," he added further. "It's happened for the first time in the history of Chandigarh mayoral polls that, 8 of 36 votes were declared invalid," said Raghav as he demanded an FIR against the presiding officer. Chadha also talked of approaching the high court, seeking to set aside Tuesday's "electoral fraud" and demanding action. He also said, "Otherwise people of this nation will lose faith in democracy". BJP's Manoj Sonkar won the Chandigarh mayoral elections on Tuesday, the first election battle against the INDIA bloc by defeating the Aam Aadmi Party's (AAP) Kuldeep Kumar. Meanwhile, BJP secured 16 votes for its mayor candidate Manoj Sonkar and Kuldeep Singh, the joint candidate of Congress and AAP was able to manage 12 votes. 8 votes were declared invalid. (ANI)
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