BJP’s Sarita Choudhry and Congress’ Abhishek Dutt are locked in a keen battle for the mayorship of South Delhi Municipal Corporation where the saffron party does not have a majority. Choudhry and Dutt on Wednesday filed their nominations for the mayor post, the election of which will be held on April 16.
BJP with 44 members out of total 104 is the single largest group in the House and has the support of BSP (6), INlD (3), JDU (1), besides a majority of the 14 independents. Congress has 29, NCP 14 and RlD and SP one each.
For the deputy mayor post, BJP has not filed nomination as it has decided to support BSP candidate Sahi Ram, while Congress has fielded Parveen Rana. Two independents Pramila Tokas (Mayor) and Satyendra Rana (Deputy Mayor) have also filed their nominations on Wednesday. BJP’s Azad Singh and Ram Narain Dubey have won the elections for mayor post in North Delhi and East Delhi corporations respectively.
For deputy mayor’s post, Congress has nominated Praveen Rana, the councillor from Bijwasan, projecting him as the rural face in this election as opposed to Dutt being presented as a youth leader. Besides, Pramila Tokas and Satendra Singh Rana (both independent) filed their nominations for mayor and deputy mayor post respectively.
The nominations for filling up vacant seats in the Standing Committee were also filed on Wednesday. Nutan Kochar and Satish Gupta from Congress; Satender Prakash, Rajesh Gahlot and Subhash Arya of BJP and Independent Indu Sharma have all submitted their nominations. April 16 has been set as the date for the election when the first meeting of the House for the month of April takes place.
According to provisions under Sub-Section (1) of Section 35 of the Delhi Municipal Corporation Act, the Corporation shall at its first meeting in each year elect one of its members to be the mayor and another member to be the deputy mayor of the corporation. The year-long tenure of SDMC’s Mayor Savita Gupta (BJP) and Deputy Mayor Bir Singh (BSP) will come to an end next week.