Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, June 8: Though it defeated the BJP in the elections to the prestigious Municipal Corporation of Delhi, The ruling Aam Aadmi Party will still have to share power with it in controlling the civic body as the two parties would have equal number of seats in the all-power standing committee. The AAP and the opposition BJP have won three seats each in the MCD standing committee.
The long-awaited election results for the top decision-making panel of the MCD have finally been announced on Thursday following a legal challenge and subsequent ruling by the Delhi High Court.
The election, originally held on February 24, resulted in a 3-3 split of seats between the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and BJP with the fourth candidate of the AAP defeated in the elections. The MCD standing committee has 18 members. Six are elected from the house, and each of the civic body’s 12 zones sends one representative.
The elected AAP members are Raminder Kaur, Mohini Jinwal, and Amil Malik. Their BJP counterparts are Kamaljeet Sehrawat, Pankaj Luthra, and Gajendra Daral. The fourth AAP candidate if elected would have tilted the balance in favour of the ruling party.
The announcement of the results was delayed due to a dispute over one invalidated vote, which prompted the Mayor of Delhi, Shelly Oberoi, to call for a re-election. This decision was met with an uproar, and a re-election was scheduled for February 27.
The BJP councillors, Shikha Rai and Kamaljeet Sehrawat, challenged the Mayor’s decision in the Delhi High Court. The court found in favour of the BJP councillors, ruling that the decision to declare a vote invalid was “bad in law.” The court further ordered that the rejected ballot be counted.
On May 23, the Delhi High Court set aside the Mayor’s decision for a re-election and directed her to announce the results of the February 24 elections. The court remarked that announcing re-elections without declaring the results of the previous poll “prima facie violates regulations.”
The AAP and the BJP have been locked in a bitter battle both in the House and in the courts over the control of the MCD even after the AAP emerged victorious in the December election, ending the BJP’s 15-year rule.
The all important vote to provide BJP its third seat was cast by the former AAP councillor Pawan Sehrawat- who joined the BJP only on the morning of February 24 when the elections for the six seats to the standing committee was held. Sehrawat met with chants of ‘gaddar’ (traitor) from AAP lawmakers as he cast his vote.
But the hostile reception left him unfazed, he walked past with a smile on his face, seemingly unperturbed by the cries, and raising his hand and twirling his finger in the air. As he joined the BJP, Sehrawat declared he felt ‘suffocated’ by the ‘corruption’ in Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal’s party. He also claimed AAP councillors had been instructed to create a ruckus during MCD House meetings; there was chaos on the election day too, with visuals showing BJP councillors shouting slogans as the House prepared for a third vote. The ruckus prompted the House to be adjourned for a while.
When the House did not resume at its scheduled time, irate BJP councillors raised chants of ‘apni ghadi sahi karao, Mayor madam sadan mey aao’, (set your watch right, madam Mayor come to the House), as they waited for proceedings to resume.
They were also seen greeting Sehrawat in the chamber of the House and flashing victory signs to welcome him into their camp. A fresh vote was held to elect six members of the MCD’s standing committee – the civic body’s highest decision-making body – on the order of Mayor Shelly Oberoi, who herself was voted to the position the previous day after three previous attempts ended in fisticuffs between the AAP and the BJP over allowing nominated members voting rights.
The AAP had ended the BJP’s nearly 15-year-rule in the Delhi civic body in December; the party won 134 of 250 wards, with the BJP claiming 104 and the Congress limited to nine.