Brawl follows barbs in Chandigarh civic body in Cong-AAP vs BJP clash | Chandigarh News – Times of India

CHANDIARH: The monthly general house proceedings in Chandigarh municipal corporation hit a new low as ruling (AAP-Congress) and opposition (BJP) councillors were involved in a major fist fight and ruckus on Tuesday.
The situation escalated to such an extent that city mayor Kuldeep Kumar had to announce a break to disperse the violent councillors and prevent further fighting.
The entire ruckus began with an argument and counter-argument between AAP-Congress and BJP councillors over multiple issues, with nominated councillors joining the heated debate. In the meantime, BJP councillors targeted mayor Kuldeep Kumar, alleging that sand was lifted from the Dhanas area a few days back at his behest. Though the mayor cleared his stand in the matter, the saffron party members continued targeting him despite the municipal commissioner’s assurance to look into the matter and provide a time-bound report within seven days.
Following this, the Congress-AAP municipal councillors entered the well with a paper and a poster of Anil Masih, a nominated councillor, and began raising slogans against him, chanting ‘Vote Chor’ (vote thief). In the poster, Anil Masih was seen watching the CCTV camera while counting the votes for the mayor election last year, a matter that reached the Supreme Court, which overturned BJP’s victory in the poll.
BJP’s and nominated councillors rushed into the well too and tried to snatch the papers. In fact, Masih tore the paper by snatching it from the hand of a Congress councillor. Masih even screamed in the house while looking at the media gallery, stating that he is on bail. The situation escalated further when BJP’s councillor and senior deputy mayor Kuljeet Singh Sandhu tried to snatch the poster from Congress’s Gurpreet Singh, leading to major manhandling between the two. However, many Congress and BJP councillors intervened to prevent a fight.
Under attack, nominated councillor Anil Masih retaliated by calling out, “Congress party chor hai.” Pressing on, he said, “Kejriwal jamanat par hai, Sanjay Singh jamanat par hai, Manish Sisodia jamanat par hai, puri AAP party jamanat par hai.” He also directed the tirade at Rahul and Sonia Gandhi.
The mayor even asked the officers concerned to call marshals to control the situation by removing the agitated councillors. However, sensing the gravity of the situation, he immediately announced a break to disperse the municipal councillors and avoid any major fight between Congress and BJP councillors. Later, nominated municipal councillor Anil Masih left the assembly hall after attending the first half of the meeting.
Earlier, the Congress-AAP alliance criticised the BJP-led central govt for privatising power in Chandigarh. Carrying placards in their hands, both Congress and AAP raised slogans against the Narendra Modi govt. The alliance partners said that privatisation is not good, and the govt is working hard to privatise power. Additionally, Congress councillor Gurpreet Singh moved a resolution against Union home minister Amit Shah, alleging that he disrespected Baba Saheb Bhimrao Ambedkar in Parliament.