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Photograph: (staff)
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) achieved a notable victory in the mayoral election of Chandigarh, securing 19 votes compared to the 17 votes garnered by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)-Congress coalition. In this election, BJP candidate Harpreet Kaur Babla triumphed over the AAP's Prem Lata.
The mayoral election in Chandigarh was a significant contest between the BJP and the AAP-Congress alliance. Voting commenced at 11:20 am in the assembly hall of the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation and concluded at 12:19 pm.
The Chandigarh Municipal Corporation consists of 35 members, which includes elected councillors and the Chandigarh Member of Parliament, who possesses voting rights as an ex-officio member.
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Before the election
Before the election, the distribution of seats was as follows: the AAP held 13 councillors, Congress had 6, BJP possessed 16, and the Chandigarh MP (from Congress) accounted for 1.
A few days before the election, Congress councillor Gurbax Rawat defected to the BJP, thereby augmenting the party's representation to 16 members.
The election was held through a secret ballot process. Nominated councillor Ramneek Singh Bedi was appointed as the presiding officer, while retired Justice Jaishree Thakur of the Punjab and Haryana High Court was designated as an independent observer by the Supreme Court to supervise the election.
Additionally, the Supreme Court mandated that the election proceedings be recorded on video.