Next MCD mayor will be from AAP: Adesh Gupta

NEW DELHI: The MCD mayor will be from the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the BJP will play the role of a “strong opposition”, the party’s Delhi president Adesh Gupta said. This came after ongoing speculation that the BJP will contest the mayoral polls. “We will play the role of a strong opposition in the MCD to save Delhi from the AAP, which has become synonymous with corruption,” Gupta said during a press conference while thanking BJP leaders and activists for helping the party win 104 wards in the civic elections.
Earlier, several BJP leaders were claiming that the MCD will get a BJP mayor. BJP leader Tajinder Pal Singh Bagga tweeted in Hindi that once again Delhi will get “a BJP mayor”. BJP’s IT department head Amit Malviya had said in a tweet: “Now over to electing a mayor for Delhi. It will all depend on who can hold the numbers in a close contest, which way the nominated councillors vote, etc. Chandigarh has a BJP mayor, for instance.”
Gupta also thanked the voters of Delhi for increasing the vote share of the party. “BJP expresses gratitude to all the voters and BJP workers of Delhi for the 40% votes that BJP got in the corporation elections,” Gupta said.
In the 2017 MCD polls, BJP got 36.08% votes, whereas in this election, the vote percentage has increased to 39.09% The Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party on 7 December, ended the Bhartiya Janata Party’s 15-year rule at the Delhi municipal corporation with the final results putting the party’s overall tally at 134. BJP won 104 seats and Congress could only manage to get 9 seats in high-decibel MCD elections.
According to the Delhi Municipal Corporation Act, the tenure of a mayor in MCD is one year, and the first mayor must be a woman, while the third mayor has to be from the reserved category. A new incumbent is sworn in every April. This year, civic polls were held in December, so the tenure of the first mayor will be four months. As per sources, AAP may pick a woman councillor from the reserved category for the top post in MCD.