Parveen Kumar Sharma Pinna was elected as Moga mayor on Monday after the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) councillor was elected uncontested by proving his majority with 30 votes in the 50-member House.
Pinna, the senior deputy mayor who had been serving as officiating mayor, is now Moga’s third mayor since 2021, when elections were last held in the municipal corporation.
Today’s mayoral election was held on the orders of the Punjab and Haryana high court, which had directed the Moga district administration to get the new mayor elected by January 31.
Councillors from the opposition termed today’s election a mockery and alleged interference by the political dispensation and the official machinery.
Denying the charges, Moga deputy commissioner Sagar Setia said that the election conducted was under the supervision of the Ferozepur divisional commissioner Arun Sekhri which went peacefully.
“The election was held in the conference hall of the DC office and the entire process was video-recorded. A total of 47 councillors were present and one vote was of the local MLA, who is an ex-officio member of the House. AAP nominee Sharma got 30 votes, including that of the MLAs, and he proved his majority,” said Setia.
The DC said that the opposition walked out of the election and did not nominate its leader against the AAP nominee, Sharma, the senior deputy mayor.
The mayoral election was necessitated after the AAP expelled its leader, Baljit Singh Chani, who was serving as the Moga mayor, in November last year.
AAP had charged Chani for allegedly having close ties with drug traffickers.
He had reportedly resigned from the post of mayor. Chani was the first AAP mayor in Punjab when he was elected in 2023.
Chani has been refuting the charges against him as a political conspiracy to malign his image that was aimed at ousting him.
Though the ruling dispensation had made serious charges against Chani, no police action has been initiated yet.
Nitika Bhalla of the Congress was removed as the Moga mayor after she lost a no-confidence motion in the House meeting on July 4, 2023, paving the way for Chani.
In the 50-member House, Chani polled 42 votes as 32 were from the AAP, and 10 from other parties extended support to the ruling party.
Whereas this time, the AAP nominee got only 30 votes, including a vote of the Moga MLA, the ex-officio member, Amandeep Kaur Arora.
