Why AAP may lose the civic war despite winning the MCD battle

But councillors will not just elect the Mayor and Deputy Mayor when the elections take place, but also six of the 18 members of the Standing Committee, which is where AAP’s problems lie.

What is the Standing Committee and why is it important?

While the Mayor is the nominal head of the civic body, it is the Standing Committee which has executive powers.

A Mayor’s powers are limited to calling special meetings of the House, declaring quorum for the House to convene sittings and disqualification of members if they do not furnish details of their assets.

Powers to grant financial approval to projects, discussions related to and the finalisation of policies to be implemented, appoint sub-committees (on issues such as education, environment, parking etc) and forming regulations fall under the ambit of the Standing Committee, which has 18 members.

The Committee has a chairperson and a deputy chairperson, who is elected from among its members. Having a clear majority in the Committee is crucial for any political party to have control of policy and financial decisions of the Corporation.

How are elections to the Committee held?

Six members of the committee are elected in the MCD house directly, after the mayoral elections. These elections have also been stalled twice, with the adjournments on January 6 and 24.

The formula followed is a preferential system in which the councillor getting the first 36 votes wins. The remaining 12 are chosen by Ward Committees.

In Delhi, the MCD is divided into 12 zones. Each zone has a Ward Committee, which includes all councillors from the area, as well as any Aldermen nominated by the government administrator, in the present case the L-G. A total of 10 Aldermen can be nominated but there is no set number to be nominated from a particular ward. All 10 can be nominated from a single ward if the administrator so wants.

All the 10 aldermen nominated by the L-G who have already been sworn in, belong to the BJP.

What are the scenarios that can come into play?

AAP’s apprehension is that the BJP will be able to win at least half of the 18 Standing Committee seats, if the Congress abstains from voting for the six members. The worst case scenario for the party is the BJP managing to get 10 out of 18 seats in the all-important Standing Committee.

If Congress does not abstain:

For the six Committee members, all elected councillors have to vote in the House. Voting is as per a preferential system in which the councillor getting the first 36 votes wins. As per this formula, AAP would easily get three seats since it has 134 votes, but BJP would have had trouble as it would have needed 108 councillors to get the same number of seats. BJP has 104 elected councillors and the support of one independent. The Aldermen don’t play a role in these elections.

AAP will win 4 and BJP 2 in this scenario.

If the Congress abstains:

With the Congress walking out, however, the preferential system will change and one member will be elected based on the first 35 votes. This gets BJP the magic figure of three members since it has 105 councillors on its side. AAP will be able to win only three.

AAP and BJP will get three each in this scenario.

Elections to Ward Committees

The remaining 12 members will be elected by Ward Committees from each of the 12 zones. It is here that the role of Aldermen becomes central.

Based on the results of the December elections — where AAP got 134 out of 250 wards — it has a majority in eight zones, with the Central zone having seeing a tough contest but eventually going to AAP. The remaining four zones went to BJP.

The 10 aldermen, however, will alter this equation.

Of the 10, four have been nominated from the Civil Lines Zone, four from Narela zone and two from the Central zone.

This means that AAP will no longer hold a majority in the first two, and the Central zone will be a tight contest.

In MCD, since the Anti-Defection law does not apply, cross voting is not penalised. This means that right from the Mayoral polls to the Committees, councillors are free to choose any member irrespective a party’s directions. Voting is done through a secret ballot.

AAP, which was expected to get eight out of the 12 Standing Committee members before aldermen were nominated, may get six at the most and 5 if it loses the Central zone.

In the event of a Congress walkout in the House, AAP’s best case scenario will be to share power with BJP in the Standing Committee with each getting six seats each. The worst would b AAP getting eight out of 18.

This is the reason AAP is keen on getting support from Congress in the House and is vehemently opposed to its decision to walkout and abstain from voting.