Preeti Aggarwal and Vijay Kumar Bhagat of Bharatiya Janata Party were elected unopposed as Mayor and Deputy Mayor of North Delhi Municipal Corporation respectively in the first meeting of the House on Thursday.
Aggarwal, a first-time BJP councillor, who represents Rohini-F ward (No 57-N), after assuming the Mayor’s chair said that the party would work in close coordination with the Opposition in order to speed up functioning of the Corporation. Her Deputy Bhagat who represents Swami Shraddhanand Colony (ward No 20-N) said that they will work for development.
"I will adopt three formulas, Swachchhta, Shiksha and Swasthya (sanitation, education and health) on which much work is needed to be done", the newly-elected Mayor said. She mentioned that ensuring sanitation would be her top priority.
Aggarwal also stressed that the Corporation will identify unlit spots in North Delhi and will install street lights to ensure safety of girls and women. She also said that a scheme would also be launched to provide meals at a cost of Rs 10 to the poor.
Sanitation has been a major poll issue. Even Delhi BJP president Manoj Tiwari had announced that its councillors will work 365 days to make Delhi garbage-free. The three civic bodies had also fared poorly in the Swachchh Bharat survey which was released recently by the Centre.
The party which is ruling all the three municipal corporation for the last ten years has been criticised by residents and Opposition parties for making the city a garbage dumping ground and will have the responsibility to fulfill the promises before election by addressing issues, specially turning Delhi garbage-free. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Congress have repeatedly attacked the BJP-led corporations for stalling developmental works.
To avoid continuous strikes every year, the newly-elected Mayor has assured that salary of sanitation workers would not be interrupted.
However, leader of Opposition (loP) in North MCD Rakesh Kumar Garg alleged that he was not invited to address the House as per protocol.
"This is first time in the Corporation's history that the House has been adjourned till the next sitting without letting the loP address the House. The voice of Opposition should also be heard. I request the Mayor to allow us to speak as well," he said.
Six members of the Standing Committee were also elected on Thursday. Congress’ Seema Tahira from ward number 87-N Bazar Sitaram, Tilak Raj Kataria (BJP) from ward number 63-N Shaliram Bagh (South), Jai Prakash (BJP) from ward number 80-N Sadar Bazar, Jayendra Dabas (BJP) from ward number 37-N Ranikheda, Ramesh Kumar (BJP) from ward number 95-N Patel Nagar and Vikas Goel of the AAP from ward number 72-N Wazirpur were elected members of the Standing Committee of North Delhi Municipal Corporation unanimously as Aadesh Kumar Gupta of BJP from Ward No 98-N West Patel Nagar withdrew his nomination.
Aggarwal had defeated AAP's Abhinav Mishra in the elections by a huge margin of 5,413 votes. She bagged 11,723 votes, while Mishra finished second with 6,310..
The post of mayor sees five single-year terms on a rotation basis, with the first year being reserved for women, the second for open category, third for reserved category, and the remaining two also being in the open category. In the civic elections, the Arvind Kejriwal-led party had finished behind the BJP with 48 wards in its kitty, while the Congress suffered a humiliating loss managing only 30 wards.
Delhi has 272 wards falling under the three corporations, while polls to Maujpur ward in East Delhi was held on May 14, Sarai Pipal ward in North Delhi will go to polls on May 21. Elections in these two wards were postponed due to death of candidates.
The BJP have 181 Councillors of the 270 wards in the civic polls, with NDMC (104 wards), SDMC (104) and EDMC (64).