Chandigarh: The BJP candidate Harpreet Kaur Babla was elected as the new mayor of Chandigarh municipal corporation defeating AAP-Congress combine candidate Prem Lata after three councillors of the alliance cross-voted in BJP’s favour in a closely fought mayoral election here on Thursday. While Babla, 60, garnered 19 votes in the House of 35, the alliance candidate Prem Lata, an AAP councillor, 46, got 17.

The election result came as a crude shock for the AAP- Congress bloc – ahead of the February 5 Delhi polls - as in the House of 35, the alliance together had 19 councillors (13 of AAP and six of Congress), besides the support of its ex-officio member, Member of Parliament, Manish Tewari, bringing its strength to 20, before the vote.

The BJP on the other hand, which had 16 councillors – a three-time Congress councillor Gurbax Rawat had joined just a few days ago – hoped to win claiming bitter bickering within the alliance.

Even though the alliance had moved all its councillors to a hotel in Punjab’s Ropar city to prevent defection, three of them voted in favour of the BJP nominee.

While the AAP candidate Prem Lata unsuccessfully fought for the mayor’s election, the Congress’ candidates Jasbir Bunty and Taruna Mehta won both the posts of senior deputy mayor and deputy mayor, defeating BJP’s Bimla Dubey and Lakhbir Singh Billu, respectively.

The mayoral election was held under the supervision of the former Punjab and Haryana High Court justice (retd) Jaishree Thakur, appointed by the Supreme Court and the entire proceedings were recorded on camera.

It may be recalled that the 2024 mayoral polls were mired in the infamous controversy after the then presiding officer, Anil Masih, a nominated councillor and former member of BJP, was accused of tampering with the ballots and rejecting votes polled in favour of the AAP-Congress alliance.

Anil had subsequently declared BJP’s Manoj Sonkar as the mayor on January 30 last year much to the ire of the alliance which first moved to the Punjab and Haryana High Court and later the Supreme Court. The top court overturned the result and declared Kuldeep Kumar Dhalor of AAP as mayor.