Nearly three months after the results of the elections to the Municipal Corporation of Delhi were declared and after three failed attempts, the election of the Mayor of Delhi finally took place on Wednesday, with Aam Aadmi Party's Shelly Oberoi getting chosen to occupy the post.
The voting for the mayor's post took place peacefully amidst tight security, a stark contrast to the furore witnessed as the House had convened the last three times to elect the new mayor.
The MCD House met on Wednesday after the Supreme Court had in its order on a petition filed by the AAP stated that the aldermen nominated by Lt Governor Vinai Saxena cannot vote in the election. On November 17, the apex court had passed an order directing the LG to issue a notice within 24 hours for convening the meeting of the MCD House for electing the mayor, deputy mayor and members of the standing committee. The order had come after the court had heard a petition filed by Oberoi.
The first item on the agenda was election of the mayor. Voting for the post of mayor took around two hours. In the end, Oberoi, who was pitted against BJP's Rekha Gupta, got 150 votes as compared to the 116 votes polled by her rival. In all, 241 councillors out of a total of 250 voted. Nine councillors belonging to the Congress did not vote.
The 250-member MCD House has 134 AAP councillors. There are nine Congress councillors and the rest are independents, one of whom has pledged support to the BJP. The electoral college also consists of seven Lok Sabha MPs from Delhi, all of whom are from the BJP. A total of 14 MLAs are nominated to the voters' list, 13 of whom belong to the AAP and one is a BJP member.
AAP's Aaley Mohammad Iqbal was elected deputy mayor. He was up against BJP's Kamal Bagri for the post. Iqbal got 147 votes, while Bagri secured 116 votes.
The situation was very different when it came to the standing committee election, with the BJP members forcing adjournment with their protests over Oberoi allowing members to carry their phones inside the House during voting. The newly elected mayor later said election will take place without phones being allowed inside the House, as had been the case in the election of the mayor and deputy mayor. The AAP has put up four candidates, and the BJP three for six seats in the standing committee.
The AAP has projected the mayoral election as a moral victory in the face of the BJP's alleged strong-arm tactics to keep its control over the MCD. As the results were announced, the AAP councillors burst into 'Bharat Mata Ki Jai' slogans. Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal was prompt in reacting to Oberoi's victory, saying the “goons of BJP” had been defeated and the people of Delhi had won.
