The Mayoral election of the Solan Municipal Corporation (MC) was postponed on Monday due to a lack of quorum after six Congress councillors abstained from the meeting as a tactical move.
Only 11 councillors — comprising 10 BJP members and one Independent — turned up, failing to meet the required quorum of two-thirds of the councillors, which amounts to 13. The district administration subsequently postponed the poll.
Since the election has to be held within the next three days, Solan Deputy Commissioner Manmohan Sharma announced July 2 as the next date.
With Independent councillor Gaurav Rajput backing the BJP, the Congress had little chance of getting its candidates elected to the two top posts of Mayor and Deputy Mayor. The BJP has the support of 11 councillors, while the Congress has only six.
Taking exception to the deliberate postponement of the Mayoral poll a month after the results were announced on May 29, state BJP president Rajiv Bindal said the Sukhvinder Singh-led Congress government, including local MLA and Health and Family Welfare Minister Dr Dhani Ram Shandil, had made a mockery of democracy.
Talking to the mediapersons, Bindal said the Congress government had deliberately delayed civic body elections in all four municipal corporations of the state — Solan, Mandi, Dharamsala and Palampur — fearing defeat.
After facing a setback in three of the four corporations, the government was now resorting to unfair means, he alleged.
He alleged that the Congress government was conspiring to unsuccessfully turn the tide in its favour by using official machinery. He added that during the election process, the Divisional Commissioner was notified as the designated authority on June 23 to decide cases related to the disqualification of councillors, with particular reference to the municipal corporations.
He alleged that the move was aimed at gaining an undue advantage by targeting BJP’s elected councillors.
He also criticised the district administration for notifying the Mayoral elections a month after the declaration of results and issuing a backdated notice dated June 24, which was circulated to councillors only yesterday. This, he alleged, came after a report regarding alleged encroachment by two elected councillors was sent to the Divisional Commissioner.
