The BJP suffered an embarrassment in South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) on Tuesday as it lost the election for the Deputy Mayor to the Congress; though managing to win the coveted mayoral post by a whisker. BJP’s Khushi Ram became the Mayor of the South Delhi Corporation defeating Congress candidate Dharmveer Singh by merely one vote. The Mayor’s post too would have been snatched away from the BJP, had the Congress MP Sandeep Dikshit managed to cast his vote timely. Another Congress MP Parvez Hashmi did not turn up at the House for voting that essentially kept the Congress away from the top post.
However, Congress councillor Praveen Rana won the election for Deputy Mayor defeating Bir Singh of the BSP, who was supported by the BJP. Rana defeated Bir Singh by a margin of 13 votes (Cong-59, BSP-46). Among the five MPs who voted during the election were Ajay Maken, Ramesh Kumar and Mahabal Mishra.
The BJP, which failed to get majority in the Corporation in 2012 elections, had managed to rule the civic body with support from the BSP and an Independent councillor Mahender Singh. However, two of the BJP councillors — Anil Sharma and Rajesh Gehlot had to quit the membership of the Corporation after they were elected to the legislative Assembly in December last year. The Independent Mahender Singh too got elected to the Assembly on AAP ticket. This reduced the strength of the House to 101 and the BJP’s strength to 48 from 50. The nail-biting contest saw Ram garnering a total of 52 votes out of 103 valid votes polled, against Congress’ 51. One vote was rendered invalid. The electorate for the mayoral polls are the elected members to the respective municipal Houses, nominated members from the MlAs in the Delhi Assembly and the area MPs.
Congress, after an initial tied score of 51 each, ended up losing as one ‘misplaced’ extra BJP vote was later found. “It could have ended up as a tie. A councillor had by mistake cast his Mayoral vote in the Deputy Mayor’s ballot box, which proved to be the decider for the BJP,” said an SDMC official after the elections.
Congress councillor and leader of the Opposition in the House Farhad Suri rued the ‘missed opportunity’ saying the two votes of the Congress MPs could have made the difference. “If we had got those two crucial votes, we would have won, but this keenly fought contest also sends a clear message in the BJP camp that, all is not well there,” Suri said. However, BJP councillor and the leader of the House in SDMC Subhash Arya took a dig at Congress saying, “Those (Congress MPs) who couldn’t come for their own party, will they be able to run a government.” Since, there is no operational State Delhi Government, no MlAs have been nominated and only the MPs could vote.
