Moments after being elected Mayor of Chandigarh on Thursday, Saurabh Joshi delivered an emotional speech in the Municipal Corporation (MC) House, holding the picture of his father with him, and crediting his late father’s life of service as the foundation of his political journey and vowing to uphold a politics rooted in “humanity, compassion and justice”. Amid the tears, Joshi said his journey was shaped not by political noise but by values instilled at home. “I come from a place where politics was not about slogans, but about service as a way of life,” he said, recalling how his father dedicated his life to the marginalised and the forgotten. “For him, the Dalit, the deprived and the oppressed were not words — they were family.”