Winning candidates posing with senior BJP leaders, including Mayor Raja Iqbal Singh (second from right) and South Delhi MP Ramvir Singh Bidhuri (second from left).
| Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came a step closer to firming up its control over the Municipal Corporation of Delhi by winning one of the two seats in the Standing Committee that went to the polls on Monday.

The party, which had nine members in the 18-member panel, as opposed to six of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), crossed the halfway mark. The other seat went to AAP.

The poll for the lone vacant seat in the civic body’s main decision-making arm will be held on Tuesday.

Polls were also held during the day for the posts of chairpersons and deputy chairpersons of the city’s 12 ward committees or zones.

Eight zones, where BJP candidates were elected chairpersons, are now under the ruling party’s control. AAP, which won five ward committees last year, saw its tally drop by one this time.

The elections were held a fortnight after 15 AAP councillors resigned from the party and announced their own outfit, the Indraprastha Vikas Party.

The anti-defection law, which punishes individual MPs and MLAs for leaving one party for another, is not in force in the municipal body.

Hailing the victory of his party’s candidates, BJP’s Delhi unit chief Virendra Sachdeva said, “We will also win tomorrow’s election and increase our tally to 11. In the days to come, we will streamline the municipal administration and restart the stalled development works.”

Delhi AAP president Saurabh Bharadwaj said in a post on X, “Despite 15 councillors leaving the party to form a new faction with the BJP’s support, we have managed to retain control over four out of five zones.”

Several big-ticket projects of the civic body were stalled because of the non-formation of the Standing Committee for two years due to a plea against the election of some of the panel members pending in the Supreme Court.

The petition was subsequently withdrawn.

The BJP, which won mayoral elections in April this year, had promised to restart the pending works by completing the committee’s formation through the conduct of polls.

Mayor Raja Iqbal Singh said, “After tomorrow’s election, efforts will be made to conduct polls for the Standing Committee’s chairperson and deputy chairperson as early as possible and conclude the process soon.”

A ward committee comprises several wards. Each year, councillors representing these wards elect a chairperson and a deputy chairperson. The 12 wards elect a member each to the Standing Committee. The other panel members are elected by the House.