The polls to elect the Mayor and Deputy Mayor of Delhi were stalled on Tuesday after Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) House was adjourned.
The Mayor and Deputy Mayor of MCD are supposed to be elected on the very first House meeting after elections. However, the election could not take place when the House first convened on January 6 because of ruckus between the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) members.
The MCD elections were held on December 4 and the counting of votes was on December 7. The AAP emerged as a winner in MCD polls with 134 of the total 250 seats. The BJP won 104 and the Congress won nine seats.
Presiding Officer Satya Sharma said on Monday that the Lieutenant Governor-appointed aldermen will take oath first, despite the fierce opposition by the AAP in the last meeting. Earlier on January 6, the House was adjourned without electing the mayor and the deputy mayor amid loud protests by AAP councillors over the presiding officer's decision to administer oath to the 10 aldermen first.
The agenda for the January 24 meeting mentioned that councillors and members nominated as per the DMC Act, 1957 (amended in 2022) will take the oath. However, it does not specify the sequence of the oath-taking.
Who are Delhi Mayor, Deputy Mayor candidates?
Shelly Oberoi and Ashu Thakur are the AAP's contenders for the post of mayor. The BJP has nominated Rekha Gupta.
The nominees for the post of deputy mayor are Aaley Mohammad Iqbal and Jalaj Kumar (AAP) and Kamal Bagri (BJP).
Besides the mayor and the deputy mayor, six members of the MCD's standing committee are also slated to be elected during the municipal House.
The post of mayor in Delhi sees five single-year terms on a rotation basis, with the first year being reserved for women, second for open category, third for reserved category, and the remaining two again for the open category. Delhi will thus get a woman mayor this year.
The voters for the election of the mayor are 250 councillors, seven Lok Sabha and three Rajya Sabha MPs from Delhi and 14 MLAs nominated by the Legislative Assembly. The Delhi Assembly Speaker has nominated one BJP MLA and 13 AAP MLAs to the MCD.
Heavy security presence at MCD House
Authorities have stepped up security inside the municipal House and on the Civic Centre premises for the mayoral poll.
A larger number of civil defence personnel, including women members, and marshals have been deployed compared to the deployment during the first municipal House on January 6, a senior official said.
"Police and paramilitary personnel have been deployed outside the House as part of security measures," the official said.
Several councillors and Delhi MLAs, including AAP member Atishi, have reached the House to cast their votes.
(With PTI inputs)
