On 6th of January, 2023 Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) will call its first meeting since Dec 2022 MCD elections. All 250 wards members elected will take oath and elect Mayor and Deputy Mayor of Delhi. Elected Mayor and Deputy Mayor will be the first Mayor and Deputy Mayor since reunification of East, North and South Delhi Municipal Corporations. MCD will also elect 6 members of standing committee along with Mayoral and Deputy Mayoral elections.
Meeting of MCD and Election process
First meeting of MCD will start a 5 year tenure of Unified Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) and its newly elected 250 councilors representing all parts of Delhi except of New Delhi and Delhi Cantonment areas which fall under New Delhi Municipal Council, and Delhi Cantonment Board respectively. Newly elected councilors will take oath and then elect Mayor and Deputy Mayor of Delhi which will remain in office until April. Elections will be held by a secret ballot and no defection laws will be applied in case of floor crossing.
Electoral college of Delhi mayoral election will be 274 which includes 250 Members of MCD, 3 Rajya Sabha Members from Delhi (All represented by AAP), 7 Lok Sabha Members from Delhi (All represented by the BJP) and 1/5th of MLA’s of Delhi Assembly (14 MLA’s 13 from AAP and 1 from BJP) announced by the speaker on rotation every year.
Clear majority of 150 favors Aam Aadmi Party out of 274 against Bhartiya Janata Party’s 114. Congress and Independents also has 9 and 2 seats respectively.
Mayor of Delhi will have 5 terms of 1 year with 1st term reserved for women, 3rd for reserved category ,2nd, 4th and 5th term reserved for open/general category.
Candidates
MCD received 3 nominations for Mayor and 3 for Deputy Mayor. 7 nominations were also for 6 Standing committee seats. Standing Committee will have 18 members out of which 12 will be elected by zones and 6 will be elected by the MCD. Brief introduction of each candidate is shown below:
Aam Aadmi Party
Aam Aadmi party declared Shelly Oberoi as their Mayoral Candidate and Aaley Mohammed Iqbal as Deputy Mayoral Candidate. Ashu Thakur and Jalaj Kumar also filed their nominations as backup candidates for Mayor and Deputy Mayor respectively. Aam Aadmi party also nominated Raminder Kaur (Ward No 100 Fateh Nagar), Sarika Chaudhary (Ward No 142 Daryaganj), Mohini Jeenwal (Ward No 218 Sundar Nagri) and Muhammad Aamil Malik (Ward No 246 Sri Ram Colony) for Standing committee seats of MCD.
Shelly Oberoi
Shelly Oberoi is a 39 years old first time elected councilor from Ward No 86 East Patel Nagar. She is also assistant professor in University of Delhi and a lifetime member of Indian Commerce Association (ICA). She got her Doctorate in Philosophy from the School of Management Studies (SOMS), Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) and is also the recipient of best paper awards in different national and international conferences, besides winning a Gold medal (Prof Manubhai Shah Award) at ICA Conference. She has also been awarded with the “Miss Kamla Rani Prize”. She took part in Dec 7 MCD polls got 9,987 votes and defeated BJP candidate Deepali Kapoor by a close margin of 269 votes. Her victory was notable as she won from a very strong hold area of the BJP.
Aaley Mohammad Iqbal
Aaley Mohammad Iqbal is a 31 years old 3rd time elected councilor from Ward No 76 Chandani Mahal. He is son of incumbent MLA from Matia Mahal Constituency of Delhi Assembly. He also served as Chairman of Delhi City Sadar’s Paharganj Zone. In recent elections of Dec 7 He got 19,199 votes and defeated Congress candidate with the highest margin of 17,134 votes among all 250 wards. Congress candidate was only able to get 2,065 votes. His nomination for deputy mayor is seen as increase in Muslim vote bank of Aam Aadmi Party in Delhi especially Riot affected North-East part of Delhi where Muslim voters voted for Congress instead causing defeat for Aam Aadmi party in North-Eastern Delhi.
Bhartiya Janata Party
Bhartiya Janata Party declared Rekha Gupta and Kamal Bagri for Mayoral and Deputy Mayoral Candidate respectively. Kamaljeet Sehrawat (Ward No 120 Dwarka-B) and Pankaj Luthra(Ward No 216 Jhilmil) were nominated for MCD’s Standing Committee. Gajendra Singh Daral (Ward No 35 Mundka) won election as Independent but joined the BJP and became 3rd candidate of BJP for MCD’s Standing Committee.
Rekha Gupta
Rekha Gupta is a 48 years old elected councilor from Ward No 56 Shalimar Bagh-B. She joined student wing of Bhartiya Janata Party, Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) in 1992. She became Secretary of Daulat Ram College and Delhi University Students Union (DUSU) from 1994-1995 and 1995-1996. She later became President of Delhi University Students Union (DUSU) from 1996-1997. She later became Secretary of Delhi chapter of BJP Yuva Morcha from 2003 to 2004. She later became National Secretary of BJP Yuva Morcha from 2004 to 2006. She became Chairperson of Women Welfare and Child Development Committee from 2007-2009. In 2009 She became General Secretary of Delhi chapter of BJP’s women wing Mahila Morcha and in 2010 she became National Executive member of BJP. In Dec 7 2022 she got 19,447 votes and defeated AAP candidate by a margin of 7,990 votes.
Kamal Bagri
Kamal Bagri is a 38 years old first time elected councilor from Ward No 80 Ram Nagar. He is member of BJP’s Youth wing for over a decade. In Dec 7 2022 MCD polls he got 12,589 votes and defeated AAP candidate by a margin of 10,255 votes.
