Madhu Azad, the BJP councillor from Ward No. 7, became the first woman Mayor of Gurugram on Friday.
She was elected unopposed at a meeting of councillors at John Hall here in the presence of senior BJP leaders and bureaucrats.
The posts of Senior Deputy Mayor and Deputy Mayor were also bagged by women councillors.
Setback for BJP
However, in a big setback to the BJP, which has a strength of 26 councillors in a House of 35, Congress leader Gaje Kablana’s wife Pramila Gaje Kablana, who won from Ward No. 9, was elected as Senior Deputy Mayor defeating the BJP’s Brahm Prakash Yadav.
Of the 26 BJP councillors in the House, 14 had won on the party’s symbol and 12 Independents had joined the party later.
BJP’s Sunita, who won from Ward No. 33, was elected as Deputy Mayor without opposition. She had contested the municipal election as an Independent, but later joined the BJP along with five others in the presence of Union Minister of State for Planning and local MP Inderjit Singh.
Though the post of the Mayor and the two deputies were expected to be filled before Diwali, the delay was caused as an agreement could not be reached on the names of candidates accepted by the two factions represented by Mr. Singh and Haryana PWD Minister Rao Narbir Singh.
However, it was unanimously decided that all the three posts should go to the councillors winning on the party’s symbol following a series of meetings between BJP State president Subhash Barala and senior party leaders over the past two days.
Internal strife
Though the party’s official candidates for the post of Mayor and Deputy Mayor were elected unopposed, Ward No. 13 councillor Brahm Prakash Yadav lost to Kablana for the post of Senior Deputy Mayor by a margin of 11 votes.
Sources claimed that the Inderjit camp played spoilsport and voted in favour of Ms. Kablana to defeat Mr. Yadav, who is considered close to the PWD Minister.
“Inderjit’s camp had 23 councillors and Ms. Kablana polled exactly the same number of votes. It is a clear indication as to who queered the pitch for the BJP candidate,” said a senior BJP leader.
The local MP’s camp, however, refuted the allegations and said they had the support of only 18 councillors.
BJP spokesperson Raman Malik said that the result of Senior Deputy Mayor would be analysed.
