Elections for the posts of Delhi’s mayor and deputy mayor were stalled on Friday after Aam Aadmi Party and Bharatiya Janata Party councillors clashed during the meeting of the civic body, reported ANI.
Municipal Corporation of Delhi officials told PTI that it was for the first time in the history of the civic body that a newly elected House has failed to elect a mayor and deputy mayor in its first meeting.
Elections for six members of the standing committee were also to be held on Friday. However, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi House meeting was adjourned for the day due to the clashes. The presiding officer for the electoral process, Satya Sharma, said that the next date for the meeting will be announced later, according to PTI.
The point of conflict between the two parties was the appointment of 10 aldermen by Lieutenant Governor VK Saxena. Aldermen are persons who have special knowledge of municipal administration and are tasked with assisting the House in decisions of public importance.
On Thursday, Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal, in a letter to Saxena, had alleged that the aldermen’s appointment appeared to have been an attempt to influence elections to the municipal corporation’s standing committee.
“...The attempt quite clearly is to ensure that the composition of the standing committee is skewed in favour of the persons belonging/owing allegiance to the ruling party at the Centre,” Kejriwal alleged.
On Friday, the clashes in the House erupted when Saxena invited alderman Manoj Kumar to take oath. Some AAP councillors then stormed into the Well of the House in protest.
BJP members shouted slogans against Kejriwal, while AAP councillors engaged in sloganeering against Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The presiding officer for the electoral process said that four aldermen took oath after which the House was adjourned.
Subsequently, AAP leader Saurabh Bharadwaj alleged the BJP was trying to get nominated councillors to vote in the mayoral elections against Constitutional norms.
The AAP had won 134 out of 250 wards in the elections to the Municipal Corporation of Delhi on December 7. The party defeated the BJP, which had ruled the civic body for the last 15 years.
On December 23, the AAP had announced that first-time councillor Shelly Oberoi would be its mayoral candidate. The son of AAP MLA Shoaib Iqbal, Aaley Mohammad Iqbal, was nominated as the party’s candidate for the deputy mayor’s post.
On December 27, the BJP nominated councillor Rekha Gupta as its candidate for the post of mayor and Kamal Bagdi for the deputy mayor’s post.
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