BJP wins posts of Mayor & Dy Mayor; infighting proves costly for Congress

With the results declared, the Delhi Congress’ tall claims of wining the coveted posts by poaching BJP councilors has fallen flat as they are now compelled to look within. “I admit the bitter fact that Congress councilors did cross-voting. We will investigate the matter,” said Farhad Suri, Leader of Opposition in South MCD, who was also the Congress candidate for the Mayor’s post. Interestingly, it was on Suri’s letter that Delhi Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung had directed South MCD commissioner Puneet Goel to ensure “secret voting” in letter and spirit so that councilors, voting against party candidates were not identified. 

Before the voting started, Suri and Congress’s Deputy Mayor candidate Indu stood at their seats and demanded stricter norms for secret ballot. 

“The councilors should not be allowed to bring pens and mobile phones. The ballot boxes must be sealed in the House with signatures of both the candidates and municipal secretary,” said Suri and Indu. 

The Congress councilors also had a heated argument with their BJP counterparts on the issue of ‘secret voting’, which Suri said termed as the sole of “free and fair voting”.  But when the results were declared, BJP’s Subhash Arya polled 60 votes against Suri who secured 41. Besides, 97 councilors of South MCD, four Lok Sabha MPs — Ramesh Bidhuri, Meenakshi Lekhi, Parvesh Verma, Maheish Giri and Rajya Sabha MP Parvez Hashmi — also cast their votes, while five MLAs and a councilor of Aam Aadmi Party abstained from voting.

“It was possible due to better floor management by Delhi BJP president Satish Upadhyay,” said Arya, after the win. 

At present, the BJP has 50 councilors in the 97-member House, while the Congress has 37. If the votes of the four MPs are added, the BJP could have polled only 54 votes, but the figure of 60 shows that they got more than expected. BJP’s Kuldeep Solanki was elected as Deputy Mayor with 69 votes, while Congress’ Indu bagged just 31. 

Two BJP councilors — Ashish Sood and Dharamvir Awana — and Congress’ Pushpa Singh have been elected as Standing Committee members.