BJP's Raja Iqbal Singh was Friday voted in as new mayor of Delhi, beating Congress candidate Mandeep Singh. BJP councillors celebrated the win with applause.
With AAP choosing to boycott the contest and Congress hardly making an appearance, BJP could quite clearly sweep the contest, besides further increasing its hold over city administration, besides controlling Delhi Assembly and the Centre too.
Raja Iqbal Singh, former Leader of Opposition in the Delhi Municipal Corporation (MCD) and former mayor of North MCD, vowed to improve sanitation, clear garbage dumps, reduce waterlogging, and provide basic amenities to people of Delhi. "We will all co-operate together with utmost sincerity and hard work," Singh pledged after being elected.
Earlier, before the elections, Singh in a statement to PTI mentioned that now the BJP was left alone to get the city on track, also adding that the AAP had already lost the game. "We will eliminate corruption and complete all the work that was left midway which got delayed over the last two years," he added.
BJP's victory in the mayoral election was since it was the majority of the MCD. The present number of the MCD is 238, out of which 12 seats were vacant. BJP has 117 councillor seats, which rose from 104 in 2022, and AAP's have fallen from 134 to 113. Congress has eight seats. As AAP boycotted the election, the victory of BJP was almost guaranteed.
The electoral college to choose to the office of mayor comprised 238 councillors, 10 MPs (7 Lok Sabha and 3 Rajya Sabha), and 14 MLAs. Delhi Assembly Speaker Vijender Gupta had also added 11 BJP and 3 AAP MLAs to the electors.
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