With the help of the Bahujan Samaj Party and Independent councillors, Sarita Chaudhary of the Bharatiya Janata Party managed to secure the post of Mayor of South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) despite her party not even enjoying a full majority in it. Securing 64 out of total 112 votes polled, she defeated Abhishek Dutt of the Congress by a margin of 16 votes. Mr. Dutt managed to get 48 votes.
Ms. Chaudhary represents Ward No 177 in Sangam Vihar and has also been the Standing Committee Deputy Chairperson of the erstwhile Municipal Corporation of Delhi.
Speaking after being elected, Ms. Chaudhary said her focus would be on making the city safe for women. She also listed sanitation and development of rural parts of the city as her priority.
With Ms. Chaudhary’s victory the BJP has won elections for the post of Mayor in all the three municipal corporations. Last week, BJP's Azad Singh and Ram Narain Dubey won the elections for Mayor post in North Delhi and East Delhi corporations respectively.
Sahi Ram of the BSP was elected Deputy Mayor of the municipal corporation at the election held at Dr. SPM Civic Centre. He defeated Praveen Rana of the Congress by a margin of 11 votes. Mr. Ram secured 62 votes out of total 113 votes polled.
With 44 members the BJP is the largest party in the SDMC. In the election, it also had the support of 14 independents, six BSP councillors, three of Indian National Lok Dal and one of the Janata Dal (United).
Nutan Kochar of the Congress, Rajesh Gehlot and Subhash Arya of the BJP, were elected members of the Standing Committee from the SDMC after Satish Gupta of the Congress and Satender Prakash of the BJP withdrew their nominations for the post.
Apart from the councillors, those who voted in the mayoral polls included the BJP MLAs H.S. Balli, Satprakash Rana and V.K. Malhotra; and the Congress MPs Parvez Hashmi, Ramesh Kumar, Sandeep Dikshit and Mahabal Mishra and MLA Arvinder Singh Lovely.
Meanwhile, elections for the post of the Chairman and the Deputy Chairman of the Standing Committee of the SDMC and chairman of zones will be held on Wednesday.
