With the Bharatiya Janata Party enjoying majority in the Municipal Corporation General House, its nominee for mayoral post, councillor Raj Bala Malik is set to become the next Mayor of Chandigarh.

Malik’s name was announced on Monday, the last day of nomination for the January 10 mayoral elections in the city.

She had switched allegiance to the BJP in the year 2014. This will be Malik’s second stint as mayor.  Earlier, she had become mayor in 2012 as the Congress candidate.

The Congress, which does not have much at stake in this election, has fielded councilor Gurbax Rawat as party’s nominee for mayoral post.

The new mayor will replace incumbent BJP’s Rajesh Kalia, who was elected on January 18 last year.

This year, the mayoral chair is reserved for a woman.  The Chandigarh mayor holds a one-year term and is chosen every year from among the elected representatives of the General House. A candidate needs at least 14 votes to become a mayor since the current House has strength of 26 members.

Of these, the BJP has a majority with 20 councillors. The Congress has five councillors and the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), which is in alliance with the BJP, has one.

Besides, one vote is that of the Member of Parliament, the ex-officio member of the House.

Apart from mayor, senior deputy mayor and deputy mayor will also be elected on the same day.

The BJP has announced the name of councilor Ravi Kant Sharma for senior deputy mayor’s post and Jagtar Singh Jagga for the post of deputy mayor while the Congress has nominated councilor Sheela Devi for the post of senior deputy mayor and Ravinder Gujral for the deputy mayor’s post.

Notably, the BJP, which enjoys two-third majority in the MC house, is worried about cross-voting which had affected it in the last mayoral polls.

In 2019 polls, all four Congress councilors had ended up supporting BJP rebel Satish Kainth, who had later joined the Congress before Lok Sabha elections.  Councillor Satish Kainth had filed papers against the party’s official choice, Rajesh Kalia, and gave him a tough fight, losing by just three votes

In 2018, the then outgoing mayor Asha Jaswal rebelled against BJP candidate Davesh Moudgil, although she later withdrew her nomination.