Congress nominees for the civic body poll with state party chief Selja Kumari. Tribune photo

Tribune News Service

Panchkula, December 13

The coming Panchkula MC elections will see Upinder Kaur Ahluwalia of the Congress and BJP’s Kulbhushan Goyal fight it out for the post of Mayor.

The Congress today finalised its candidates for the civic body poll, slated for December 27, said a Congress leader and member of the consultative committee of the party. He said the party had decided to field Ahluwalia for the post.

Ahluwalia also confirmed that the Congress had chosen her for the Mayor’s post. However, there was no official release from the party in this regard till the filing of this report. Ahluwalia (50), who was the first Mayor of Panchkula, will now fight for a second term. She was elected the Mayor in 2013 with the support of 12 members when there was no provision for a direct election of the Mayor. Ahluwalia held the post till 2018.

The Congress candidates for the posts of councillor are Kuljeet (ward 1), Aman Dutt Sharma (ward 2), Bhawna Gupta (ward 3), Priyanka (ward 4), Naresh Rawal (ward 5), Pankaj (ward 6), Usha Rani (ward 7), Ravi Kant Swami (ward 8), Om Shukla (ward 9), Gurmail Kaur (ward 10), Shardeep Kaur (ward 11), Sunita (ward 12), Naveen Bansal (ward 13), Yogender Kwatra (ward 14), Gautam Prasad (ward 15), Dayal Singh (ward 16), Akshdeep Chaudhary (ward 17), Sandeep Sohi (ward 18), Ritu Kasna (ward 19) and Salim Dabkori (ward 20).

The list of candidates was shared by several Congress leaders on the social media, including WhatsApp. They shared a photo of the Congress candidates with state party chief Kumari Selja.

JJP announces three candidates

The JJP, BJP’s alliance partner, declared its three candidates for the civic body poll — Sushil Garg (ward 14), Rajesh Kumar (ward 9) and Amrinder Singh (ward 18). The party has been given four seats by the BJP under a pact. Bhag Singh Damdama, JJP leader, said they were yet to finalise a candidate for the remaining seat. He added that they would choose from among the two candidates seeking the ticket with a consensus. The candidate’s name would be declared on Monday, the JJP leader said.