Captain's man Sanjeev Sharma Bittu appointed Patiala mayor; Yoginder Singh Yogi, Vinti Sanger his deputies

PATIALA: Taking the expected line, the Congress on Tuesday appointed CM Amarinder Singh's loyalist Sanjeev Sharma Bittu as the fifth mayor of the Patiala Municipal Corporation (PMC) after the party wiped out the SAD-BJP alliance in the recently held civic body elections by bagging 59 out of 60 seats.
Yoginder Singh Yogi, another proponent of the CM in his hometown, was made the senior deputy mayor. The party appointed Vinti Sanger as the deputy mayor making sure that it does not lose its grip among both women and Dalit voters.

The new appointments had the stamp of Preneet Kaur, former Union minister for external affairs and wife of the Punjab CM, who is to contest the 2019 Lok Sabha elections from Patiala, which she had represented twice before. With the new appointments in the PMC, the New Moti Bagh Palace — residence of Amarinder Singh —has started preparations for the 2019 general elections.

Name of Bittu, local entrepreneur and a second-time councillor from ward number 42, had been doing the rounds ever since the results of the civic body elections were announced. He has been a close aide of the palace and has remained associated with the Congress for around three decades.

After serving the party as a worker for the first few years of his political career, Bittu was elected president of the district unit of the Youth Congress in 1996. He was elected councillor in 2012 and became the leader of the opposition in the PMC in which the strength of the Congress councillors had been reduced to merely six. Later, he was also made the chairman of the urban development cell of Punjab Congress.

Jogi has remained linked to the Congress for over two decades. It is his first time in the Patiala civic body. His closeness to Moti Bagh Palace became apparent after he was made the chairman of Progressive Punjab Cell by the party leadership a few years back.

Out of the 60 wards in the PMC, 32 fall under the constituency represented by cabinet minister Brahm Mohindra, while 26 are in that of CM Amarinder's constituency. Two are in Sanour, which is represented by the Akali MLA Harinderpal Singh Chandumajra.

Despite, having the maximum number of wards, the Mohindra camp could not make it to the top slot in the Patiala MC. Mohindra said being the political head of the state, it was the prerogative of the CM to approve the names of the mayor and other functionaries.