Bathinda, Nov. 5 -- The ruling Aam Aadmi Party's (AAP) Sham Lal Jain was on Tuesday elected as the senior deputy mayor of the Bathinda municipal corporation (MC), defeating Congress candidate Harvinder Singh Laddu.

In the 50-member House, Jain secured 30 votes, while Laddu managed to get 12 votes. Eight councillors abstained from voting. The election was supervised by additional deputy commissioner Poonam Singh.

Jain, a three-time councillor, was elected on a Congress ticket in 2021 but later switched allegiance to the AAP. He was recently appointed as an adviser to mayor Padamjeet Singh Mehta, son of Punjab Cricket Association president Amarjit Mehta.

The development comes nine months after AAP's Mehta was elected as the Bathinda mayo...