The first meeting of the newly elected House of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) on Friday was adjourned without electing the Mayor and the Deputy Mayor amid protests by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) councillors over the presiding officer’s decision to first administer oath to the 10 members nominated as aldermen to the civic body.
BJP councillor Satya Sharma, who was nominated by the L-G on Thursday as the presiding officer for the first House meeting, said the next date for the meeting will be decided by the L-G and announced later. A senior MCD official confirmed that none of the members have taken oath, and that the meeting will have to be conducted again.
At the first House meeting of the MCD, all councillors are administered the oath, following which election to the office of the Mayor is held. The councillors also elect six members to the civic body’s Standing Committee.
Apart from the 250 councillors, Delhi’s seven Lok Sabha MPs, three Rajya Sabha MPs and 14 MLAs nominated by the Delhi Assembly Speaker also cast their vote in the mayoral polls.
AAP has a clear majority in the House with 134 councillors, followed by the BJP with 104 councillors.
On Friday, chaos erupted within minutes of the House meeting’s commencement with AAP leaders raising slogans. However, the situation took a violent turn with numerous AAP and BJP councillors coming to blows and hurling furniture at each other. Both sides said their councillors were injured during the clashes.
Chaos breaks out
Senior AAP leader Saurabh Bharadwaj told The Hindu that it was the “tradition” for the elected councillors to be administered the oath first. He added that the BJP was trying to gain control of the civic body by allowing nominated members to vote in the Mayor and the Deputy Mayor elections, which was against the provision in the Delhi Municipal Corporation Act, 1957.
AAP’s MCD in-charge Durgesh Pathak said the presiding officer and the 10 nominated members were all from the BJP, adding that they were hand-picked by the L-G to benefit the BJP in the civic body.
According to the Act, the 10 nominated members do not have the right to vote in the meetings of the House.
“There is no provision in the Act which states that the elected councillors have to be administered the oath first. Many of AAP’s councillors were yet to join the meeting and I decided to let the nominated members take their oath first. AAP came prepared to cause chaos in the meeting and the incident has been communicated to the L-G House.
There was no mention of the nominated members being given voting rights in the House meeting,” the presiding officer told The Hindu.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal also reacted to the development, in a tweet, and referred to Article 243-R of the Indian Constitution, adding that it does not allow nominated members to vote in the meetings of the municipality.
Voting for the MCD polls was held on December 4, followed by the counting on December 7. The results saw AAP putting an end to the BJP’s 15-year term in the city’s three erstwhile civic bodies (now unified).
