Four days since the ruckus in the first meeting of the elected House of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) at the civic body headquarters, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) mayoral candidate Rekha Gupta blamed the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which is in majority, for “intentionally disrupting" the oath-taking ceremony and indulging in “negative politics", while the latter attacked the saffron party for being “insecure" and “illegally taking charge of the proceedings".
After the violence, following which the meeting was adjourned on January 6, Lieutenant- Governor (L-G) Vinay Kumar Saxena is yet to approve another date to elect Delhi’s mayor, the first single mayor to be elected after 10 years. The civic body was reunified on May 22, 2022. Prior to it, three corporations, headed by a mayor each, used to handle civic issues.
According to officials, this is the first time in the history of the civic body that the House saw violence which disrupted the proceedings and ensured the mayor, who is the head of the House, has still not been elected. The infrastructure was badly damaged and will take time to be fixed. This is affecting development works, as until the time the House is not ready, the budget for development works cannot be passed.
Gupta, 48, also BJP’s national vice-president of Mahila Morcha, said the AAP had planned it in advance, as they didn’t want the House to function, because they were unsure if their mayoral candidate, being a new face, will be able to win the election.
THE ATTACK
“The AAP councillors entered the hall where the oath-taking ceremony of alderman was to take place at 11.45 am, even as the time for the proceedings to begin was 11 am. They kept the House waiting for 45 minutes, as they were planning this whole thing. The moment the ceremony started, AAP councillors jumped onto the stage and started throwing the equipment, including mic, table and chairs off the podium. Several women councillors got afraid and found a corner to save themselves from the ongoing hooliganism," said Gupta, who is a three-time councillor from north Delhi’s Shalimar Bagh.
She added that the AAP took offence that the presiding officer allowed alderman (nominated members) to take the oath first and started vandalising the stage. This was despite the fact that the Delhi Municipal Corporation (DMC) Act nowhere mentions any particular order of swearing-in councillors and alderman. “Everything was going as per the DMC Act, but the AAP, which hasn’t come out of its mode of agitation, be it in power or in opposition, continued with its violent tactics, as it is afraid that its mayoral candidate is a new face and may not win the election," said Gupta.
AAP’s mayoral candidate Shelly Oberoi, 39, a former visiting faculty at Delhi University (DU), who won her first election as councillor from East Patel Nagar, a BJP stronghold, refused to speak, while her office said, “She is not speaking to the media at the moment."
THE RESPONSE
Reacting to the allegations, AAP MLA and spokesperson Saurabh Bharadwaj, however, said that it is sad that the BJP is indulging in such “dishonest and petty politics" just to run things on their own, despite knowing that the AAP has the majority and the mayor will definitely be from the party, which has the numbers. “Our candidate holds a PhD in commerce, she is well-read, has been associated with the party for eight-nine years and has been a grassroots worker. She won the election from a BJP stronghold seat. It is the BJP, which is insecure and hence is indulging in dishonest politics to turn things in their favour. But we will not let that happen," said Bharadwaj.
Oberoi is a member of the Indian Commerce Association (ICA) and did her Ph.D. from the Indira Gandhi National Open University’s (IGNOU) School of Management Studies. She has won several awards in different conferences. She joined the AAP in 2013 and was appointed the Delhi unit vice-president of the party’s women’s wing two years ago.
He added that the BJP councillors beat up AAP councillor Praveen Kumar. He was abused, punched and kicked for objecting to the swearing-in of aldermans instead of elected councillors. It has been a precedent since the civic body came into existence that the elected members are administered the oath first.
He added that from appointing the presiding officer, who as per the rules has to be the seniormost member, to nominating random BJP workers, every other rule in the book was bypassed by the L-G and the BJP councillors just, so that the House could be run their way.
“The DMC Act says that an alderman has to be a person who is a specialist in a specific field or has knowledge of a subject, but the ones appointed by the L-G are district-level leaders of the BJP. Every person in the city can see how they are misusing their power. But, we are not the Congress, we are the AAP and will get things done our way," he said.
Under the existing provisions of the DMC Act, the first woman mayor of the corporation will have a truncated tenure of just three months and fresh elections for the post will need to be held in April 2023. The post of mayor sees five single-year terms on a rotation basis, with the first year being reserved for women, the second for open category, third for reserved category, and the remaining two also being in the open category.
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