Chandigarh, Feb. 24 -- With just months to go before the Chandigarh municipal corporation (MC) general elections, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) suffered another setback on Monday as one of its councillors, Prem Lata, who represents Ward 23 (Sectors 34, 35 and 43), quit the party along with her supporters and joined the Congress. The AAP, which had stormed the MC House with a majority of 14 councillors after the 2021 general elections, has seen several defections in the past four years, and is now left with just 10 councillors in the House. Just recently, two AAP councillors - Poonam and Suman Sharma - had also deserted the party to join the BJP in the run up to the mayoral elections. Earlier in 2023, then AAP councillor Taruna Mehta joined the Congress. On her decision to quit the AAP, Prem Lata said that she was disheartened as the party seems to have helped the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) win the mayoral elections in 2025 as well as 2026. This year, the party had refused to join hands with the Congress, effectively handing a cakewalk victory to the saffron party. In the previous election, three AAP councillors had cross-voted, but the party took no action, she claimed. In 2025, BJP's Harpreet Babla won the high-stakes mayoral contest against Prem Lata, securing 19 votes to her 17. A total of 36 votes were cast, including that of MP Manish Tewari, who is an ex-officio member of the House. The BJP won the poll battle despite the AAP-Congress alliance having 20 councillors in its camp, while BJP had 16 then. "I have waited for 18 months, enough is enough. Corrupt leaders are ruling the roost and genuine party workers are not valued. Despite a majority, they (AAP) could not secure the mayor's post in four out of five years of this MC House's tenure. There was cross voting in the previous polls when I was the candidate for the mayor's post but no action was taken against anyone by the top leadership. I am fed up," said Prem Lata. During the MC elections in 2021, the AAP got its first-ever majority in the city, winning 14 seats in the 35-member MC House. It was closely followed by the BJP with 12 seats and Congress with eight. The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) secured one ward, though its councillor Hardeep Singh later joined the AAP and is now the leader of Opposition in the House. Despite AAP's strength in the House, it was the BJP that won the mayoral elections in 2022, 2023, 2025 and now in 2026. In January 2024, after a vote-tampering fiasco, the Supreme Court had declared the AAP candidate the winner - the only time that AAP was able to secure the mayor's post in the last four years. Several other leaders, including Ritu Chhabra, Kuldeep Kukki, Harjinder Baba and Yankee Kalia, also joined theCongress. Ritu Chhabra's husband, late Pradeep Chhabra, was a senior leader of Congress who also remained party's president in Chandigarh for seven years....