In Indian politics, it is commonplace for smaller parties or independents to back a larger party’s candidate for civic posts. What is far less common — and far more politically revealing — is elected representatives of one party openly crossing the floor to support their principal rival in a civic body election. That is precisely what happened in Mohali on June 9.
When the Mohali Municipal Corporation elected its new Mayor, Senior Deputy Mayor, and Deputy Mayor, 35 councillors — 27 AAP, four Independents, three BJP, and one Congress — raised their hands in favour of AAP’s Sarabjeet Singh Samana for the Mayor’s post. Samana, a three-time councillor and son of Mohali AAP MLA Kulwant Singh — described by celebration chants as “MLA da munda” — was always the frontrunner. But, the three BJP councillors who publicly backed him made the day politically remarkable for reasons that go well beyond Mohali’s civic affairs.
The numbers and what they mean
The 50-member Mohali MC house comprises 27 AAP, 12 Congress, four SAD, four Independents, and three BJP councillors. AAP needed 26 votes for a simple majority. With its own 27, it was already there. The support of four Independents and one Congress councillor — taking the total to 35 — was therefore a comfortable bonus. The BJP councillors’ support was neither numerically necessary nor politically innocuous. It was a choice; and a consequential one.
This is believed to be among the very few instances, if not the first in Punjab, of BJP-elected councillors publicly backing an AAP candidate for a mayoral post in a direct election. The BJP and AAP are not just rivals — they are ideological and political adversaries across every tier of governance. The BJP governs at the Centre; AAP governs Punjab and has repeatedly been the target of Central agencies including the ED and CBI. For BJP councillors to openly endorse AAP’s mayoral candidate — in a show-of-hands election, no less, with no cover of secrecy — is a breach of party discipline that the BJP’s state leadership and national high command simply cannot ignore.
Has this happened before?
In Ludhiana, following the 2021 civic polls, AAP emerged as the largest party by winning 41 of 95 wards but fell short of a majority. It reached the majority mark of 48 after four Congress councillors, two Independents, and one BJP councillor joined it. The Congress and BJP councillors staged a walkout when names for mayor, senior deputy mayor, and deputy mayor were proposed. That BJP defection, however, involved a party-join rather than a public mayoral vote. The Mohali case — where BJP councillors raised their hands for AAP’s candidate while ostensibly remaining in the saffron fold — is categorically more visible and harder to explain away.
Organisation, discipline, and the 2027 shadow
The more important question is not just what these three councillors did, but why — and what it says about the BJP’s organisational state in Punjab’s fastest-growing urban district. Across Punjab, the BJP won only 172 wards in the civic polls — fifth in the statewide tally, behind even Independents. In Mohali MC, the party won just three MC seats out of 50, and its only outright civic body win in the district was the Nayagaon Municipal Council. Against this backdrop of organisational fragility, three newly elected councillors publicly backing the AAP mayor within days of their own victory signals either a serious breakdown in party communication, individual opportunism driven by local compulsions, or both.
The BJP state leadership has not publicly commented on the episode. When contacted, Punjab BJP president Kewal Dhillon said he was unaware of the development. “We’re fighting AAP tooth and nail for all the ills in Punjab. I will check how our councillors have supported AAP and take corrective measures,” he told The Tribune.
Whether the high command is aware — and whether disciplinary action will follow — remains publicly unanswered. The BJP’s own track record of dealing with such defections has been inconsistent. In other states, the party has moved swiftly to expel or suspend councillors for acts of political impropriety. In Punjab, where the organisation is already under pressure ahead of the 2027 assembly elections, such action risks further demoralising an already thin bench.
What it means for Mohali and Punjab
For Mohali’s lakhs of residents, the immediate question is governance. The new Mayor has pledged to rid the city of its garbage mess and start a city bus service as immediate priorities. (The Tribune) Whether AAP can deliver on Mohali’s chronic civic failures — waterlogging, encroachments, poor sanitation, and infrastructure gaps — will define the party’s urban credibility going into the assembly campaign. The new Mayor and his party now have no numerical alibi for inaction: with 35 councillors behind them, the House is effectively in AAP’s pocket.
For the BJP, the calculus is different and more urgent. Two-time former Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh, now with the BJP, had already asked a pointed question about his party’s overall civic showing: “If your municipal corporations are doing badly, municipalities are doing badly, that is the BJP’s base. And if that’s doing badly, then where are you winning?” The Mohali episode sharpens that question considerably. A party whose own elected councillors publicly cross over to back the chief rival — less than two weeks after winning their own seats on a BJP ticket — is a party with a ground-level problem that goes beyond vote counts.
What needs to happen
The BJP Punjab leadership needs to address this publicly and promptly. Silence will be read as either complicity or weakness. If the councillors acted without authorisation, disciplinary proceedings must follow — not merely as punitive symbolism, but as a signal to the party cadre that the organisation has boundaries. If the crossing was quietly sanctioned by local leaders seeking Mohali development funds from the AAP state government, that too needs to be acknowledged and corrected. Either way, allowing it to pass without institutional response would set a damaging precedent as the state gears up for its most consequential election in years.
As Capt once observed, echoing Amit Shah, even Brahma cannot predict what will happen in Punjab. But some political lessons are entirely predictable: parties that cannot hold their own councillors on a show of hands are unlikely to hold their voters at the ballot box.
