Mallika Dureja
Delhi’s civic body will on Wednesday make a fourth attempt by MCD to elect a mayor, days after the Supreme Court ordered that nominated members will play no role in the voting process, as it closed the chapter on one of the key sticking points that has hamstrung the city’s civic administration for several weeks.
Wednesday’s meeting has a three-point agenda — the election of a mayor, a deputy mayor and six members of the powerful standing committee, according to a notification released by the municipal office.
In accordance with the order issued by the highest court on Friday, the mayoral election will be held first, followed by the election of a person to oversee the remaining elections.
However, elections for members of the standing committee, a critical body that handles the Municipal Corporation of Delhi’s (MCD) finances, may still prove to be a bone of contention between the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) (BJP).
Months after the December MCD elections, in which the AAP won 134 of Delhi’s 250 civic wards, the civic body continues to be administered by centrally selected bureaucrats, who have already determined the tax rates for the upcoming fiscal year.
The AAP, which appears to have the edge in the mayoral polls, has filed 39-year-old Shelly Oberoi for the seat and 31-year-old Aaley Mohammed Iqbal for her deputy.
The BJP, which gained 105 seats in the election, has named Rekha Gupta, aged 48, as its leader and Kamal Bagri as her deputy.
To be clear, the anti-defection rule does not apply to municipal bodies, which means members are allowed to vote for any candidate, irrespective of party connections.
The last three attempts by Civic Centre to elect a mayor – on January 6, January 24, and February 6 – all resulted in utter turmoil, prolonging a routine administrative process by weeks and leaving the new company without a mayor for twenty days following the election.
During the first meeting, uncontrolled physical brawls between AAP and BJP members over aldermen being sworn in before councillors forced the pro-tem speaker, BJP’s Gautampuri councillor Satya Sharma, to adjourn the House.
The city’s 250 councillors were, eventually, sworn in during the next meeting on January 24. However, the House was adjourned without a mayor being elected following another full-blown dispute amongst members, forcing the AAP and BJP to shift blame.
A third meeting, held on February 6, similarly ended in disgrace due to Sharma’s contentious actions, which included permitting aldermen to vote in mayoral elections. Allegations and counter-allegations of poaching and constitutional infractions led to the adjournment of the house and the postponement of the mayoral elections.
This prompted the AAP’s Oberoi to sue the Supreme Court later that day, demanding that the 10 aldermen not be permitted to vote and that the mayoral polls and elections to the municipal body’s standing committee be held separately, but within a deadline.
On Friday, the bench led by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dhananjaya Y. Chandrachud and consisting of justices PS Narasimha and JB Pardiwala stated, “Article 243R of the Constitution of India has imposed a restriction that nominated members who are brought in will not have voting rights. The same limitation is enshrined in Section 3 of the DMC [Delhi Municipal Corporation] Act.”
The electoral college for the mayoral election consists of 250 elected councillors, seven members of the Lok Sabha from Delhi, three members of the Rajya Sabha, and one-fifth of the Delhi assembly (14 MLAs) appointed by the speaker on a yearly basis by rotation.
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Speaker Ram Niwas Goel has appointed thirteen AAP MLAs and one BJP MLA to the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD).
In the electoral college (150 votes), the AAP has 134 councillors, three Rajya Sabha MPs, and 13 MLAs, whereas the BJP has 105 councillors, seven Lok Sabha MPs, and one MLA (113 votes).
The AAP stated that it will halt the BJP’s “harassment and corrupt practises.”
“Everyone in Delhi is aware that the MCD is directly governed by the central government via the lieutenant governor, the special officer, and the commissioner,” the AAP said in a statement.
