MCD Mayor Election LIVE: House adjourned till next date, AAP says won’t leave

Amid ruckus in MCD house, which led presiding officer Satya Sharma to adjourn the proceedings, AAP MLA Dugesh Pathat demanded for a Delhi mayor today. Addressing the gallery, he said all 135 councilors, 13 MLAs and 3 MPs are sitting in the house and Delhi should get a mayor today.

Delhi police and paramilitary force reach the MCD Headquarters due to security reasons at Civic Centre

BJP councillors staged protest outside after they walked out of the MCD house. Meanwhile, the AAP councilors are continuing to sit inside the house chamber.

A ruckus ensued at Civic Centre, MCD Headquarters soon after voting for Delhi’s mayor began. The election is postponed as the House was adjourned sine die due to ruckus.

Taking to Twitter, AAP MLA Praveen Kumar shared his reaction on repeated MCD house adjournments. “How long will Delhi have to wait for a mayor? How many more days will it take BJP to accept its defeat in Delhi MCD?” he asked.

Presiding officer Satya Sharma said house proceedings cannot be conducted amid sloganeering from both AAP and BJP councillors

BJP councillors raise slogans against AAP in the well while the MCD house remains adjourned.

Leader of the house Mukesh Goyal appeals that the presiding officer should not allow the nominated members (aldermen), who are ineligible to vote in Mayor election, to sit in the chamber during the mayor election.

Presiding officer Satya Sharma has announced that there will be small break in the proceedings for making preparations for Mayor election.

With Brijesh Singh from Sabapur taking oath, all 250 councilors and 10 nominated members have completed the oath taking process.

Update: 241 out the 250 elected councilors have taken oath so far.

The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) is set to elect the national capital’s first mayor as a whole in a decade about three weeks after visuals of mayhem inside the House had triggered criticism for leaders of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the BJP. The AAP had wrested control of the civic body from the BJP last month, ending its 15-year-rule. It was the first time that elections were held for a unified MCD after three civic bodies of the city merged into one last year. Read full story

Oberoi, born in Delhi, has done a PhD from Ignou’s school of management studies, and has been an assistant professor in several universities. She joined AAP as an activist in 2013 and rose to become the vice president of the women wing in Delhi in 2020.

First time councilor fromDelhi’s East Patel Nagar ward – Shelly Oberoi – is the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) candidate for mayoral election in the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD). Oberoi, who was a visiting professor in Delhi University (DU), won the civic body election from a BJP stronghold.

Around 150 members have taken oath, another 100 are remaining.

Following the mayoral poll, Delhi will get a mayor for the city as a whole after a gap of 10 years.

The post of mayor in the national capital sees five single-year terms on a rotation basis, with the first year being reserved for women, the 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.

BJP MP Ramesh Bidhuri said, “We lost by a nominal margin, but we will win the mayor election. The AAP people who have bought tickets paying ₹50-70 lakh will now realise the truth.”

Fellow BJP MP Gautam Gambhir said, “We don’t do politics like the Aam Aadmi Party. I wish that the election goes peacefully… Whoever wins the mayor (post) should work for the people of Delhi.” (PTI)

Voters for the mayor’s election are the 250 councillors, seven Lok Sabha and three Rajya Sabha MPs from Delhi and 14 MLAs nominated by the Legislative Assembly.

The new 250-member MCD House reconvened on Tuesday with members nominated by the Lt Governor taking oath before the elected representatives amid cries of “shame shame” from AAP councillors.

Despite objections raised by AAP councillor Mukesh Goyal, Presiding Officer Satya Sharma administered the oath to the nominated members before the elected members.

The nominated members raised slogans of “Jai Shri Ram” and “Bharat Mata ki Jai” after the ceremony, reported PTI.

Shelly Oberoi, AAP mayor candidate and councilor from East patel nagar takes oath.

The BJP had claimed that its councillors Inder Kaur, Anita Deoli and Kamaljeet Sherawat sustained injuries during the protest while AAP took to social media to list its injured.

“There was a fatal attack on our councillor in the MCD House. BJP councillors are involved in the attack,” AAP MLA Saurabh Bharadwaj said.

The AAP, which ended the 15-year-long reign of the Bharatiya Janata Party in the MCD polls held on December 4, has cried foul play over Delhi LG VK Saxena’s decision to appoint BJP councillor Satya Sharma as the presiding officer of MCD and 10 aldermen to the civic body. (ANI)

Aale Md Iqbal, the Deputy Mayor candidate of AAP takes oath.

On January 6, high drama ensued in the house for over an hour as Delhi was all set to elect its first single mayor in 10 years after the Municipal Corporation of Delhi was unified last year.

High pitched ruckus was heard in the MCD House as the presiding officer invited alderman Manoj Kumar to take oath first. The presiding officer, MCD commissioner and other officials left the House after the ruckus. Councillors from both parties clashed and then took to protests with sloganeering against each other ahead of the Delhi Mayor polls in early this month. Marshals had to make their presence felt as several councillors were injured in the process.

Seven candidates are in the fray for six posts of the Standing Committee. The Aam Aadmi Party has fielded Amil Malik, Raminder Kaur, Mohini Jeenwal and Sarika Chowdhary while the BJP has fielded Kamaljeet Sehrawat, Gajendra Daral and Pankaj Luthra.

After the trifurcation, mayoral elections were held for all the three corporations — NDMC, SDMC and EDMC — in 2012.

In April 2012, Meera Aggarwal was elected unopposed as the mayor of the then newly-created NDMC while her party colleague Azad Singh had become the deputy mayor. (PTI)

In April 2011, the then BJP nominee Rajni Abbi was elected the mayor of Delhi defeating her rival Savita Sharma of Congress by 88 votes. Abbi was then a Delhi University law professor and is currently serving as the varsity’s dean. (PTI)

BJP mayor candidate Rekha Gupta takes oath.

Bobby Kinnar, first transgender councillor, elected from Sultanpuri A-ward, takes oath.

The mayoral elections will begin after oaths are administered in the House to aldermen and the newly elected councillors. The House will be presided over by BJP councillor Satya Sharma, who has been appointed presiding officer by the lieutenant governor (LG) VK Saxena.

The MCD had come into being in April 1958. It had began its journey from the historic 1860s-era Town Hall in old Delhi and in April 2010, was shifted to the swanky Civic Centre complex.

Portraits of Aruna Asaf Ali still adorn the chambers of the old municipal House at Town Hall and at offices at the Civic Centre. A prominent street in the city was also named after her.

The position of mayor wielded a lot of influence and carried huge prestige till 2012 when the corporation was spilt into three separate civic bodies — North, South and East municipal corporations — with each having its own mayor. However, last year, they were reunified and the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) again came into existence. (PTI)

Leader of the house and head of AAP councillor group Mukesh Goyal has taken oath. 

“Paramilitary forces are present inside the House, with sticks in their hands. Does BJP want to take over MCD forcefully by intimidation?” said AAP MLA Saurabh Bharadwaj.

Former North MCD mayor Raja Iqbal Singh is taking oath.

Oath taking process for 249 elected councilors has started. Satya Sharma, the presiding officer and councilor from Gautampuri, had taken oath during the last house meeting on January 6.

Delhi is set to get a woman mayor on Tuesday and she will step into the footsteps of freedom fighter Aruna Asaf Ali who was chosen to the top post in 1958 when the Municipal Corporation of Delhi came into being.

All of the ten nominated members have completed their oaths.

Nominated members (aldermen) are taking oath first.No ruckus is being observerved. Vinod Kumar, Mukesh Maan, Sunit Chahuhan, Rajkumar Bhatia (all of whom are aldermen) have taken oath.

Leader of the AAP councilor group Mukesh Goyal appeals the presiding officer to allow elected members to take oath ahead of the nominated members.

Presiding officer Satya Sharma has initiated the proceedings of the house. Appeals for a peaceful proceeding.

Heavy security presence and a layer of security personnel at the MCD house to separate the seats of presiding officer and councilors. 

AAP councilors and MLAs have assumed their seats for the MCD house meeting.

Rekha Gupta will contest for the mayor post and Kamal Bagri as her deputy from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The AAP has fielded Shelly Oberoi for mayor and Aaley Mohammad Iqbal for deputy mayor. 

The sticking point, as it was during the first House meeting, is likely to be the administering of oaths to 10 nominated members, known as aldermen, who don’t have voting rights, but may swing the balance of power in a key body that controls the Municipal Corporation of Delhi’s (MCD) finances.

The MCD House meeting scheduled today is expected to be stormy as all the issues that led to the chaos in the first meeting on January 6 continue to persist. Read more