Independent winner Hajan Khatoon Tak claims Nohar municipal chair for BJP after lucky draw

Election Results

In the municipal committee elections held in Nohar on September 14, the Bharatiya Janata Party won just two of the 40 wards, while the Congress secured 20 seats and Independents took 18.

The Vote and Lottery

When the house met on Monday to elect the chairperson, Congress nominee Sumit Chachan and BJP nominee Hajan Khatoon Tak both tied with 20 votes each. Tak had won her ward as an Independent before the BJP picked her up as its face for the top post. With the vote deadlocked, a young girl was called in to draw a single folded slip from a lottery, which carried Tak's name and declared the 62-year-old as the chairperson.

Background and Police Drama

Tak's late husband Manzoor Ali Tak previously served as chairperson of the same committee, and she is the mother-in-law of former Rajasthan minister of state Mehrunnisa Tak. The election also saw political drama on Sunday when police pasted notices at the homes of three Congress-associated men—Balvir Suthar, Mukesh Joshi, and Kuldeep Mirasi—over a two-month-old land fraud case. Police called the action routine and unrelated to the vote, though Suthar and Joshi are close aides of Congress MLA Amit Chachan.