Sandeep Rana

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, December 9

While there was a fight for the ticket among aspirants in most parties, the SAD could not even find all nominees for the MC elections.

The BSP’s alliance partner had to field 19 candidates, but could manage only 16 nominees. The BSP, however, managed to field candidates on all its allotted 16 seats as part of an alliance agreement with the Akalis. The BJP, Congress and AAP had witnessed high drama after the announcement of candidates as there were many probables for the ticket. After the first list was declared, upset over the denial of the ticket to a leader, AAP volunteers had burnt effigies of senior leaders, including party supremo Arvind Kejriwal. Some of them had even shifted to the BJP or the Congress or filed nominations as Independent candidates. Even when the BJP and the Congress announced their nominees, there was upheaval in their camps.

Senior Congress leader Shashi Shankar Tiwari and others rebelled and announced to support Independent candidates.

In the BJP, its OBC Morcha chairman, along with supporters, expressed annoyance in public over not being considered for the ticket

The SAD struggled to find candidates in the city. “Had they told us in time, we would have managed to field candidates from our party,” said city BSP president Gurcharan Singh Kamboj. Lone SAD councillor and city party president Hardeep Singh claimed, “It is not that we did not find candidates. We got late in filing nominations. Three could not find the required documents.”