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…