Who will be the next Delhi mayor?

After the reunification of the municipal corporations, Delhi is all set to get a single mayor for the first time in 10 years. The AAP ended the 15-year-long reign of the Bharatiya Janata Party in the MCD polls that were held on December 4.

Ahead of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi mayor election, Delhi Lt Governor VK Saxena on Thursday (January 5) nominated BJP councillor Satya Sharma as the presiding officer for the first House meeting.

Aam Aadmi Party cried foul over the appointment of a BJP leader to the post of acting Speaker and said that the party is hell-bent on destroying all democratic traditions and institutions.

Wrote a letter to Hon’ble LG against the illegal and unconstitutional manner in which notification on aldermen has been done. pic.twitter.com/SdTVcujtGn

— Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) January 5, 2023

Mayor nominees: AAP has fielded two candidates - Shelly Oberoi and Ashu Thakur. One candidate of the AAP is a backup candidate, PTI reported quoting party sources. Oberoi is AAP's main contender.

• BJP, on the other hand, has nominated Rekha Gupta, a 3-term councillor from Shalimar Bagh for the mayor poll.

Deputy mayor nominee: The AAP has named Aaley Mohammad Iqbal and Jalaj Kumar as its nominees for deputy mayor's post. BJP has named Ram Nagar councillor Kamal Bagri as its candidate.

Who all can vote? Other than the 250 councillors, 14 Delhi MLAs, seven Lok Sabha MPs, and three Rajya Sabha MPs from Delhi will vote in the mayor election.

• "At present, out of 14 nominated MLAs, 12 or 13 will be from Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) while one or two MLAs will be from the BJP. Apart from this, seven Lok Sabha MPs and three Rajya Sabha MPs from Delhi are also nominated members. All of them have the right to vote in the elections held for the post of mayor," Subhash Arya, a senior leader of MCD in the BJP, told India Today.
• Going by this, out of total 24 MPs and MLAs, 15 or 16 will be from AAP while 8 or 9 will be from BJP. So the AAP seems to have an upper hand.

Voting process: Voting will be done through a secret ballot. Any councillor can vote for any candidate of his/her choice, and the anti-defection law does not apply in this case because it is impossible to find out who voted for whom in a secret ballot.

• If there is a tie, a special draw of lots will be conducted by the special commissioner appointed to supervise the polls and the winner will be sworn in as mayor.

Chances of cross-voting: Since the anti-defection law is not in force in the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), cross-voting of councillors is possible, and the BJP has claimed that the city would again have a mayor from the party.

Congress to abstain from voting: The Congress, which has nine councillors in the MCD, has decided to abstain from the mayor elections. The Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee issued a letter on Thursday mentioning the three councillors, who will lead the party in the MCD.

Mayor's term: The post of mayor in Delhi sees five single-year terms on a rotation basis. The first year is reserved for women, the second for the open category, third for the reserved category, and the remaining two will also be in the open category.

The Aam Aadmi Party won the MCD elections, ending BJP's 15-year rule of the civic body by winning 134 seats in the 250-ward MCD. The BJP won 104 seats while the Congress came a distant third with just nine seats.