BJP's Harpreet Kaur Babla wins Chandigarh mayoral election
What's the story
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has won the Chandigarh mayoral election. BJP candidate Harpreet Kaur Babla won with 19 votes, defeating the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)-Congress alliance candidate Prem Lata, who received 17 votes. Babla won after three opposition alliance councillors allegedly defected and voted in favor of the BJP. The election was held through secret ballot in the assembly hall of the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation.
Twitter Post
Confident this will indeed happen, says BJP
#WATCH | Devinder Singh Babla, Chandigarh BJP vice president & husband of newly-elected Mayor Harpreet Kaur Babla says, "We were confident that this will indeed happen. Mayor Kuldeep Kumar made up for everything else that remained, he showed that he was looting the… pic.twitter.com/Tb11T3L2Ux
— ANI (@ANI) January 30, 2025
Election strategies
Pre-election dynamics and strategic moves
Before the election, Congress councilor Gurbax Rawat had switched sides to the BJP. The AAP had 13 seats and Congress six in the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation, which has 35 members (elected councilors and an ex-officio member—Chandigarh MP Manish Tewari). This would have have brought their total to 20, compared to the BJP, which had 16 councilors.