Model code, procedural complexities: Cloud hangs over MCD mayor polls

“According to the Delhi Municipal Corporation (DMC) Act, polls need to be held in the first assembly meeting of April. If the EC denies permission due to the Lok Sabha elections, the MCD polls might have to be pushed to May-end,” a senior MCD official, associated with the process, said.

The MCD also needs permission from L-G Saxena as well as a presiding officer nominee to conduct the polls. “The mayor is generally the presiding officer, but according to the act, any councillor with good knowledge of the workings of the MCD and its election process can be nominated… permission is generally sent from the Chief Minister…the absence of Arvind Kejriwal due to his arrest can be valid grounds for refusal of permission,” the official stated.

Sources in the bureaucracy said the L-G Secretariat was yet to receive the file related to the internal civic body polls, which, they said, needs to be routed through the Urban Development department and the Chief Minister’s office.

Responding to a query on a possible delay in conducting the polls, Delhi government sources said: “The government has an obligation to complete the process of Mayor election in April 2024. There have been some delays on the part of officers who were processing the NOC from the Election Commission. The file has been sent to the Election Commission and we are waiting for the NOC.”

Urban Development Department Minister Saurabh Bharadwaj, sources said, was “personally monitoring and following up on a daily basis” developments related to the polls.

If it comes to it, this will not be the first time that the MCD elections are postponed; previously there have been delays due to the 2014 Lok Sabha polls and then in 2020 and 2021 due to the Covid pandemic.