On July 3, Veerpal Narwal was elected chairperson of Muzaffarnagar’s district council. The road to the chair was a tough one for the Bharat...
On July 3, Veerpal Narwal was elected chairperson of Muzaffarnagar’s district council. The road to the chair was a tough one for the Bharatiya Janata Party politician. In May, Narwal had almost lost the zila panchayat elections from his ward – it is the winners of these direct elections who can stand for and vote for the position of the district council’s chairperson. It was only after a controversial recount in May that Narwal, a medical doctor by training, was declared the winner by a margin of 59 votes in the ward of over 40,000 voters.
His opponent, Prabhat Kumar, has moved the court seeking a stay on the results. “The ARO [assistant returning officer] had initially declared me as the winner by 159 votes,” he said. “Then suddenly at two in the night, I got to know that they were recounting the votes.”
His contentious slim victory aside, only 12 other of Narwal’s fellow party members had managed to win the zila panchayat polls in Muzaffarnagar. This meant BJP-backed candidates had won only 13 of the 43 zila panchayat wards in the district – way short of a majority. The numbers, therefore, were heavily stacked against Narwal as he sought to be...
