Bharatiya Janata Party leader Harpreet Babla on Thursday won the Chandigarh mayoral election, defeating the Aam Aadmi Party and Congress’ joint candidate Prem Lata, The Indian Express reported.

Babla will become mayor of the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation. She received 19 votes of the 36 votes polled, while Lata got 17.

The Chandigarh Municipal Corporation has 35 members, including elected councillors and Chandigarh MP Manish Tewari, who has voting rights as an ex-officio member, NDTV reported.

The Aam Aadmi Party and Congress alliance failed to elect the mayor despite their numbers due to apparent cross-voting by councillors in favour of the BJP, PTI reported.

The Aam Aadmi Party has 13 councillors in the corporation while the Congress has six. One vote was cast by Tewari, who is part of the Congress. The BJP has 16 after Congress councillor Gurbax Rawat defected to it ahead of the elections.

Voting began through secret ballot at 11 am on Thursday under the supervision of Justice Jaishree Thakur, a former Punjab and Haryana High Court judge. The proceedings were also recorded on camera.

The Supreme Court on Monday appointed Thakur as an independent observer to monitor the voting. The court issued the order on a petition filed by Kuldeep Kumar, the incumbent Chandigarh mayor and an Aam Aadmi Party leader.

Kumar had sought that the election be conducted by a “show of hands” and not a secret ballot. He also highlighted irregularities during the previous mayoral election in 2024.

Last year, the ballot papers were defaced by Returning Officer Anil Masih during the election to invalidate them. He then declared the BJP candidate as the winner.

Kumar moved the Supreme Court, which set aside the results and declared the Aam Aadmi Party leader as the validly elected mayor.

This time, the position of the mayor was reserved for a woman councillor, The Indian Express reported. The mayor is elected for a year’s term.