The Supreme Court on Tuesday said that it would not tolerate “subterfuges” that destroy electoral democracy even at the local level, while declaring the Aam Aadmi Party’s Kuldeep Kumar as the new Mayor of the Union Territory of Chandigarh.
A three-judge Bench headed by Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud initiated action against Anil Masih, the Returning Officer who presided over the controversial mayoral elections on January 30 whose “defacement” of eight ballot papers was caught on security cameras. Mr. Masih’s “furtive” conduct had swung the electoral results in favour of the BJP’s Manoj Sonkar. The Supreme Court had intervened on February 5 to sequester the ballot papers and video records of the polling day.
By declaring Mr. Kumar as Chandigarh Mayor in a single stroke on Tuesday, the court dashed the BJP’s hopes for fresh polls to the municipal corporation.
