The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) emerged victorious in the recent mayoral Chandigarh mayor elections. Manoj Sonkar, a BJP councillor, has taken over as mayor. Sonkar finished the election with sixteen votes. He exceeded Kuldeep Singh, the Congress and Aam Aadmi Party’s joint nominee (AAP), Singh received twelve votes.

Chandigarh mayor elections was shrouded in controversy as claims surfaced that Anil Masih, the presiding officer, had marked votes with ticks. Eight votes were cancelled as a result of it.

After the controversial incident, Congressman Pawan Bansal claimed that “the eight ballot papers were rejected in a premeditated manner” in an attempt to protest the events that transpired. He emphasised that the ballot paper was kept from Congress or AAP agents. One explicit directive was given to the presiding officer, who is a shallow person: he was to emerge only after announcing the BJP candidate as the winner.

“We were observing the live stream.” As you can see, the BJP candidate was standing next to the chair as soon as the presiding officer vacated it. Before anyone could go there and see, the BJP members hurried in, took, and tore the ballot papers, Bansal continued.

Earlier, a Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) councillor advocated for the None of the Above (NOTA) option to be included in the voting. Since the Municipal Corporation Act does not contain a provision of this kind, the request still needs to be fulfilled.

The election was initially slated for January 18 but was postponed because of the presiding officer’s illness. The AAP and the Congress members expressed their suspicions that the BJP was manipulating the delay, which incited protests. The Punjab and Haryana High Court became involved. The polling date was moved up from February 6 to January 30.

Deputy Commissioner Vinay Pratap Singh of the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation was present during the voting process. Voting was supposed to start at 10 am, but it wasn’t until nearly an hour later because the deputy commissioner and a few BJP council members were running late.