NEW DELHI: Another round of mayoral polls will be held on February 16th, as Delhi LG VK Saxena has given his nod for the next session of the MCD House. This is the fourth time the mayor polls will be held in Delhi.
In the first meeting, the election was called off as AAP and BJP councillors came to blows. The second meeting on January 24 saw a similar picture in the house. But the elected and the nominated members were administered oaths. In the third meeting, the session was adjourned within 45 minutes with the BJP and AAP councillors fighting.
AAP has alleged that the mayoral election could not be held as the BJP was “strangulating democracy and the Constitution of India”, while the saffron party accused the Aam Aadmi Party of coming out with excuses to stall the mayoral poll and blamed it for the stalemate.
The Supreme Court is expected to hear on February 13 the plea moved by two AAP leaders seeking time-bound elections and challenging the decision by the presiding officer to allow the nominated members (aldermen) to vote in the mayor polls and hold elections to the posts of mayor, deputy mayor and members of the Standing Committee on a single ballot.
The civic body in Delhi had 272 wards across its three corporations – NDMC, SDMC, and EDMC – which existed from 2012-2022, before being reunified into a sole MCD, which formally came into existence on May 22 last year.