After Delhi victory, BJP eyes its next goal — winning MCD Mayoral polls

The mayoral elections are expected to be held in April, and the BJP is working to consolidate its numbers and wrest control of the MCD from the AAP, which party insiders said, is not going to be an uphill task.

In the 2022 MCD elections, AAP secured a majority by winning 134 seats in the 250-member House while the BJP won 104 seats. The Congress managed to secure nine seats, and three councillors were independents. However, the MCD’s tenure since then has been tumultuous, with both the BJP and AAP engaging in aggressive poaching of each other’s councillors.

As per the Delhi Municipal Corporation Act, the MCD is required to elect a new mayor and deputy mayor for which elections are supposed to be held in April every year.

Apart from the councillor, 14 MLAs (nominated from parties in proportion to their representation in the Delhi Assembly), seven Lok Sabha MPs (all BJP) and three Rajya Sabha MPs (at the moment, all of them are from AAP) are going to be a part of the mayoral electorate.

In the previous mayoral elections, the BJP had only one nominated MLA. Given that their numbers in the Delhi Assembly have now increased, the number of elected MLAs who will be a part of the electorate during the upcoming mayoral elections will also see an increase.

The 2023 mayoral polls had seen a delay for eight months due to the non-appointment of a presiding officer by L-G V K Saxena. When the elections were finally held in November last year, AAP’s Mahesh Kumar Khichi had won by a razor-thin margin of just three votes. The results had also exposed friction within AAP as eight of its votes went to the BJP, which had signalled potential vulnerability within the AAP.

To be sure, the anti-defection law does not apply to the MCD councillors leading to constant defections, which have significantly altered the composition of the House. Ahead of the Assembly polls, the BJP’s numbers had climbed to 120 while AAP’s tally had dropped to 121.

The Assembly polls further impacted these figures as AAP has now lost three of its councillors who have successfully transitioned into MLAs — Punardeep Singh Sawhney (Chandni Chowk), Prem Chauhan (Deoli), and Aaley Iqbal (Matia Mahal). This has reduced its total to 118.

On the other hand, the BJP saw eight of its MCD councillors enter the Assembly — Ravinder Singh Negi (Patparganj), Shikha Roy (Greater Kailash), Chandan Chaudhary (Sangam Vihar), Gajender Daral (Mundka), Neelam Pehelwan (Najafgarh), Poonam Sharma (Wazirpur), Umang Bajaj (Rajender Nagar), and Rekha Gupta (Shalimar Bagh). Additionally, Rajkumar Bhatia, an L-G-appointed MCD alderman, won the Adarsh Nagar seat. These developments brought the BJP’s tally in the MCD down to 112.

With just six seats short of AAP, the BJP needs only four more councillors to dominate the civic body.