: More than half of the MLAs nominated by the Delhi Assembly Speaker as members of the municipal corporations did not attend a single meeting of the House in 2015-2016.
Of the 13 MLAs nominated to the three BJP-ruled corporations, seven failed to attend any meetings of the House, as per attendance records available with the municipal secretaries’ offices. The House meets at least once a month, plus there are special sessions and Budget meetings. Each of the corporations had between 18-20 meetings of the House in the past year.
The Aam Aadmi Party MLAs were nominated by the Speaker in March last year, and their term ends in April. A new lot of MLAs, including 10 of the previous nominees, were named for 2016-2017 last month.
For the North Delhi Municipal Corporation, two out of the five MLAs – Rakhi Birla and Imran Hussain – did not attend any meetings. Som Dutt led the pack with five meetings, followed by Rituraj Govind with four and Sukhbir Singh with two. Mr. Dutt was the only one to attend the elections for Mayor and Deputy Mayor on April 28, though he did not cast his vote.
Of the South Delhi Municipal Corporation’s five nominated MLAs, three – Narayan Dutt Sharma, Parmila Tokas and Sahi Ram— did not attend any meetings. Interestingly, Ms. Tokas and Mr. Sahi Ram were councillors in the SDMC, till they left to join the AAP and fight the Assembly elections in 2015. Gulab Singh, the MLA from Matiala, attended two meetings of the House and Mahinder Yadav attended one.
Subhash Arya, the Leader of the House of the SDMC, said that MLAs’ attendance during the previous Congress government was also poor, but they would cast their votes for Mayor and Deputy Mayor.
“We have not seen any of the MLAs in the last two mayoral polls. They are nominated to raise issues about their constituencies that pertain to the corporation. They should participate,” said Mr. Arya.
The Opposition Congress also said that the MLAs could play an important role.
The East Delhi Municipal Corporation saw one out of the three MLAs nominated as members attend a meeting. Krishna Nagar MLA S.K. Bagga attended the meeting of the EDMC House on May 20, 2015. The other two MLAs – Kapil Mishra and Raju Dhingan – failed to attend any meetings.
Requests for comment from AAP as well as government spokespersons were unanswered.
