New Delhi, April 20: The election for the post of Mayor of Delhi will be held on Wednesday with the victory of BJP nominee and Delhi University law professor Rajni Abbi almost certain in view of her party enjoying an overwhelming majority in the corporation.
If elected, she will be the second woman Mayor in the BJP’s five-year term in the corporation. Arti Mehra was the Mayor of Delhi for two years in succession from 2007.
The BJP had witnessed a brief rebellion in its ranks as councillor Narain Singh had also filed his nomination for the post of Mayor, but was persuaded to withdraw his name.
Savita Sharma of Congress has also filed nomination papers for the post of Mayor.
Anil Kumar Sharma of BJP, a first-time councillor, and N Raja of Congress filed their nomination papers for the post of Deputy Mayor, election to which will also held tomorrow, at a special meeting of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi.
Suman Kumar Gupta and Rekha Gupta of BJP and Tulsi Ram Sablania of Congress filed their nominations for the posts of members of the Standing Committee to be nominated by the corporation. There are three vacant posts of members of Standing Committee for nomination from MCD.
Abbi, a first-time councillor and a former deputy chairperson of Standing Committee, is all set to be elected as Mayor as BJP has an overwhelming majority in the 272-member MCD House. BJP’s strength is 172, followed by Congress (74), BSP (16) and Independents (10). One councillor does not have voting right.
Along with nominated MPs and MLAs, who also have voting right, the strength of BJP is 177 and that of Congress 91.
Elected from Mukherjee Nagar ward, Abbi is an associate professor in the faculty of law at DU. She is also an alumnus of the same university. She is a specialist on commercial and consumer laws and had been a topper in LLB and LLM exams.
Abbi said if elected, her priorities will be to work on a mission mode to ensure a clean Delhi, improve the image of the MCD and strongly oppose its proposed division into five parts.
“We are against the Delhi government’s proposal to split MCD and will send our own report to the Union Home Ministry so that it can take an informed decision,” she said.
–PTI