Rekha Gupta, a councillor from Shalimar Bagh, was chosen by the BJP on Tuesday to run against Shelly Oberoi of the AAP for mayor of Delhi in the January 6 elections.
According to Harish Khurana, chairman of the Delhi BJP media cell, Kamal Bagri has also been named as a candidate for deputy mayor along with Kamaljeet Sehrawat, Gajendra Daral, and Pankaj Luthra for standing committee member positions. Later in the day, all of the party candidates will submit their nominations.
The 250-member Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) House is overwhelmingly controlled by the AAP. Since the MCD is exempt from the anti-defection law and floor crossing may be conceivable, some party leaders predicted that the race for mayor and deputy mayor would be fierce. In the civic body elections earlier this month, the AAP defeated the BJP, ending its 15-year hegemony in the MCD by capturing 134 of the 250 wards. The BJP was successful in 104 wards.
Gajendra Daral, a councillor from Mundka, later joined the BJP as well. The Delhi BJP will attempt to gain three seats on the important standing committee of the MCD, despite the fact that it is unlikely to win the positions of mayor and deputy mayor. Council members are free to vote for any candidate since the anti-defection rule does not apply to the election of the mayor, which is conducted in a secret ballot.
250 elected council members, seven Lok Sabha and three Rajya Sabha members from Delhi, and fifteen Legislative Assembly members are among the electors for the position of mayor. 13 AAP and one BJP MLA have received nominations from the Delhi Assembly Speaker to the MCD.
There were 274 votes cast in the mayoral race. The math favours the AAP, which received 150 votes to the BJP’s 113. In the MCD House, the Congress has nine council members, and the other two are independents.
On January 6, candidates will be chosen for the positions of mayor, deputy mayor, and members of the standing committee. The MCD’s standing committee has 18 members, of which 12 are chosen by the zones and six by the House.
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