After East and South Delhi, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday retained its grip in North Delhi after BJP councillor from Paschim Vihar Sanjeev Nayyar was elected as Mayor of North Delhi unopposed.
This comes before the party is headed for bypolls on May 15. Sources said the decision to present fresh faces for the major posts was taken as a poll plank to win the upcoming MCD by-elections.
According to the sources, the BJP was under immense pressure to come out with new candidates for the big posts in a bid to avoid the “corrupt image” of MCD to secure victory in upcoming bypolls.
This happened after the feud that erupted between ex- Mayor Ravinder Gupta and the former leader of House in North Delhi Municipal Corporation (MCD). They trading corruption charges against each other. After this fiasco BJP’s top leadership order setting up of a committee to look into the prospects of the BJP winning the bypolls. The committee found out that “it would be difficult for the BJP to win the bypolls if the current leaders of the BJP are repeated on the top posts”.
“The need of the committee was to come up with fresh faces. BJP had somewhere realised that they would not be able to do well in the upcoming bypolls if they repeated the faces, hence they came up with new faces for posts of Mayor, Deputy Mayor and many others,” said a source. The three new mayors and deputy mayors of three MCDs are all new and fresh faces. These include newly-inducted North Mayor Sanjeev Nayyar, East Mayor Satya Sharma and South Mayor Radhe Shyam Sharma.
After being elected Mayor, Nayyar said, “It is a huge responsibility which has been given to him and he would fulfill it with all sincerity and dedication. My priority would be Swachchh Bharat Mission, mosquito-free North Delhi, and riddance from menace of stray dogs, corruption-free environment and augment of revenue.”
Nayyar further said though North Corporation is facing financial crisis, all efforts would be made to receive the outstanding due funds from the Delhi Government and for implementation of municipal reforms, which is their constitutional right.
Tarachand Bansal, councillor from Rohini (ward No. 51) was also elected unopposed as Deputy Mayor of North Delhi. Bansal has an experience of working as Chairman of Rohini Zone Ward Committee and Works Committee. Vijay Prakash Pandey, BJP councillor Rohini (ward No. 49) and Neelam Buddhiraja, BJP councillor from Adarsh Nagar (Ward no. 14) and Prithvi Singh Rathore (Congress) from Peera Garhi were elected members of the Standing Committee for three vacant posts. Elections to all these posts were unanimous as same numbers of nominations were filed as the number of vacant positions.