Chandigarh, January 8: Crisis within the Chandigarh BJP ended this evening with Asha Kumari Jaswal, outgoing Mayor, and Ravi Kant Sharma agreeing to withdraw their candidature for the posts of mayor and senior deputy mayor, respectively, in the presence of Sanjay Tandon, president of city BJP, councillors and senior leaders of the party.
Jaswal’s decision came after Davesh Moudgil submitted an unconditional apology in writing to her and the party president.
Sources said Tandon had held meetings for more than six hours with both groups to end the crisis. Jaswal called a meeting of her group at her residence which was attended by Arun sood, former mayor, Vinod Aggarwal, Rajesh Kalia, Bharat Bhushan, Jagtar Singh Jagga, Sunita Dhawan, Ravikant Sharma, Satish Kainth, Shakti Prasad Devshali and Gurpreet Singh Dhillon. Later, Sanjay Tandon, party president, also joined the meeting, which had continued for over an hour.
After listening to the grievances of the councillors, Tandon reached the BJP’s Punjab office in Sector 37 where he, along with Dinesh Kumar, organisation general secretary, held a long meeting with Davesh Moudgil. Party leader Chandrashekhar was also present during the meeting.
At the meeting, Tandon apprised him of the councillors’ grievances and made him agree to sign the ‘mafinama’. After the meeting, Tandon took Moudgil to Jaswal’s residence where he read out the apology written by Moudgil before all councillors and assured all of them that the BJP official candidate for the post of mayor would take all councillors along and would take decisions in consultation with the former mayors and the party president. Tandon said the BJP was like a family an any differences should be sorted out within the family.
The meeting followed the councillors’ visit to Delhi to meet senior leaders of the party where the central leadership gave stern instructions that they all should work together to ensure the victory of the official candidate. “The party leadership told them to withdraw nominations,” said sources.
The sources said Tandon would hold an all-councillor meeting on Monday.
The drama started soon after party in-charge Prabhat Jha declared Davesh Moudgil as the official BJP nominee for the post of mayor. Unhappy over the decision, outgoing Mayor Asha Jaswal and councillors Ravi Kant Sharma and Vinod Aggarwal filed their nominations for the posts of mayor, senior deputy mayor and deputy mayor, respectively, as independents.
News Source: http://www.tribuneindia.com
