BJP Concedes New Delhi Mayor will be from AAP as its Majority Swell by Two More Members
NEW DELHI, Dec 9: The BJP seems to have finally accepted defeat in the Delhi municipal corporation elections conceding that the new mayor of Delhi will be from the victorious Aam Aadmi Party, a major climb down from its earlier stand that the issue of mayor was “still wide open.”
“BJP will play the role of a strong opposition in the MCD,” Delhi BJP President Adesh Gupta said on Friday adding that his party would not allow any corruption, and act as “a watchdog” in MCD. “Delhi should be clean and MCD should do good work, it will be our priority,” he added.
The BJP climb down came on a day when two more councillors who were elected on the Congress ticket in this week’s elections announced their decision to join the AAP swelling the ruling party’s rank to 136 in the house of 250. The BJP, contrary to the prediction of suffering a massive defeat came close with 104 seats.
Earlier, the BJP had suggested that the AAP may have won the majority in the MCD polls, but the Mayor’s election is still an open game, while noting that Chandigarh, where its rival was the largest party, has a mayor from BJP. “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,” BJP’s IT department head Amit Malviya had said in a tweet. Though the AAP had emerged as the single largest party by winning 14 seats in the 35-member Chandigarh municipal polls but it had not won a majority.
The Congress, which could manage to win only nine seats in Delhi, suffered another jolt when two of its elected members along with party’s Delhi unit vice-president Ali Mehdi switched over to the AAP on Friday.
Two of the Councillors are Sabila Begum and Nazia Khatoon. At a press conference, AAP leader Durgesh Pathak said they decided to join his party after seeing the work done by Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.
Sabila Begum won from ward number 243, Mustafabad, and Nazia Khatoon won from ward number 245, Brij Puri. Anti-defection law does not apply to the MCD polls.
Mehdi said he decided to join AAP as he wants development in his area.
“We have decided to join the AAP after seeing the development work done by Kejriwal. We want development in our area. Under the leadership of Kejriwal, the AAP party is working hard to develop the capital,” Mehdi said.
(Manas Dasgupta)
