Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) councillor Neema Bhagat was elected unopposed as the Mayor of East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC), while Bipin Bihari Singh was elected Deputy Mayor on Monday. As per the practice, the Mayor and Deputy Mayor are elected in the first meeting of the house.
Bhagat was elected unopposed in the first sitting of the newly elected councillors who were administered oath by protem chairman of the House, Nirmal Jain, who represents Shahdara ward.
It’s a third term in a row for the BJP which has won 47 of 63 in wards that had gone to polls in areas under the EDMC. the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) which has become the main opposition in all the three corporations, managed to win only in 11 wards in the EDMC.
Bhagat who represent Geeta Colony ward had defeated AAP’s Pooja Chhabra by 2,869 votes as her nearest rival in the high-stakes MCD polls held on April 23.
Six members of the Standing Committee were also elected on Monday. Pravesh Sharma from Ram Nagar (37-E), Santosh from laxmi Nagar (14-E), Satpal Singh from West Karawal Nagar (61-E), Kiran from Mayur Vihar Phase-I (1-E), Kanchan Maheshwari from Kanti Nagar (26-E) and Rekha Tyagi of AAP from Subhash Mohalla (48-E) were elected members.
BSP councillor from Seelampur, Sakila wore a hijab (veil) and took oath in Urdu while BJP councillor Indira Jha (Dilshad Colony) took oath in Maithili and her party colleague Gurjeet Kaur (Bhajanpura) in Punjabi.
Bhagat, who was also a councillor in the erstwhile Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) in 2007, said that she will act as the “mother-in-law” and promised that the “inexperience” of her team of first-time councillors will not affect the work of the civic body.
Bhagat also said that resolving the issues of fund crunch faced by the civic body that lead to repeated strikes by sanitation workers, would be her first priority.
“South and North corporations are financially stable but EDMC is facing financial issues. If the three corporations are unified EDMC will be benefited and the corporation could function normally,” she added.
The Mayor said that the civic body will make efforts to get “`3,970 crore” dues owed to it by the Delhi Government.
East Delhi has witnessed half a dozen strikes in past three years by the sanitation workers who demanded timely payment of their salaries and other dues.
“I will sit with the leaders of sanitation workers to sort out their demands, including payment of pending salaries. We are with them and try to take a decision with regard to their demands,” the new EDMC mayor said.
Meanwhile sanitation workers boycotted the oath ceremony and dumped garbage outside the EDMC headquarters in protest of Corporation’s apathy to deal with their long pending issues like arrear, pension, promotion and untimely salaries.
Deputy Mayor Bipin Bihari said that taking forward Swacchh Bharat Mission is responsibility of the local bodies and EDMC would make all the efforts to promote and execute various programmes under it. “Improving financial condition of EDMC would be their top most agenda,” he said.
On May 18 and May 19, BJP’s Preety Agarwal and Kamaljeet Sehrawat were elected unopposed for the post of mayor in the North Delhi Municipal Corporation and the South Delhi Municipal Corporation, respectively, had also emphasised that sanitation would be their “top priority”.
The BJP which has already elected Mayors in NMC and SDMC won 64 of 103 wards in NMC and 70 of 104 in SDMC. The total wards in Delhi is 272 in which polls to Maujpur ward in east Delhi was held on May 14 while voting in Sarai Pipal ward in north Delhi was held on May 21. Elections in these two wards were postponed due to death of candidates.
In the swachh Bharat reckoning of 434 cities for 2016-17 while was released recently reveals that areas falling under the three municipal corporations are at a low -- the EDMC (196), SDMC (202) and NDMC (279).
In the civic elections, the BJP registered a thumping victory by winning 181 of the 270 wards. The AAP had finished behind the BJP with 48 wards in its kitty, while the Congress suffered a humiliating loss managing only 30 wards. Eleven wards were won by others six (Independent candidates), three (BSP), and one each by INlD and SP. The BJP had fielded all fresh faces in the municipal polls this year which had seen a voter turnout of 53.53 per cent.