Blow-by-blow: 24-hour saga of Delhi’s House of chaos

The seat of Delhi’s civic governance was, on Wednesday, meant to elect a mayor, a deputy mayor, and six members of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi’s (MCD) standing committee – routine tasks it failed to complete in three previous attempts.

Footwear, water bottles, microphones, and even the ballot box – no weapon was off-limits for Delhi’s councillors as many hurled projectiles, and others slapped, kicked, and rained punches at each other between Wednesday evening and Thursday morning, turning a routine internal election process at the Civic Centre into an uncivil brawl in what marked a new low for the Capital’s already hobbled municipal administration.

The disquiet began soon after the mayor ordered the elections for the six members of the standing committee, a key panel that controls the MCD’s finances. (ANI)

After the violent evening, in which Delhi’s 250 elected councillors failed to elect any members of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi’s (MCD) standing committee, representatives camped at the Civic Centre all night, using the benches as beds. The projectile exchange eventually stopped, and councillors segued into singing Bollywood songs, reciting the Hanuman Chalisa, and shouting protest slogans.

The seat of Delhi’s civic governance was, on Wednesday, meant to elect a mayor, a deputy mayor, and six members of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi’s (MCD) standing committee – routine tasks it failed to complete in three previous attempts.

The first two were accomplished uncharacteristically smoothly between 10am and 6pm, with the Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) Shelly Oberoi elected mayor and the party’s Aaley Mohammed Iqbal her deputy. However, the third became a bitter bone of contention between councillors from the AAP and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The disquiet began soon after the mayor ordered the elections for the six members of the standing committee, a key panel that controls the MCD’s finances.

Between the beginning of the session and 6pm, there were two adjournments ordered for the preparations of the counting of votes. In contrast, from then till 9.48am on Thursday, there were 15 adjournments, all ordered by Oberoi amid bouts of violence that led to the police being called in to prevent grave injuries.

A few minutes into the voting process for the standing committee, which began around 6.11pm, several BJP members rushed into the well of the House protesting Oberoi’s decision to allow the use of mobile phones inside the polling booth, calling it a violation of the secret ballot.

By the time the mayor stopped the process and ordered an adjournment at 6.34pm, 47 members (check) had already cast their votes.

The BJP members alleged that the AAP councillors were asked by the party leadership to click a picture of their ballots and send it to senior leaders to establish that they did not vote against the party’s candidates. To be sure, there is no anti-defection rule in the civic body and members are not bound by a party whip on whom the should vote for.

When the House resumed at 7.30pm, the mayor revised the order acceding to the BJP’s demand, and said the phones cannot be carried inside the polling booth from then on. However, the BJP members continued their protest saying that the process should start afresh, and the 47 members who had already voted should be asked to recast their ballots. When the mayor did not allow this, protests by BJP councillors gained momentum. As the councillors refused to go back to their seats, the mayor ordered another adjournment at 7.57pm.

Over the next 14 hours, the mayor would assume her chair 13 more times, appeal to the members not to enter the well of the House, and underline that the process will be completed in the same sitting “as per Supreme Court directions”.

Tired after a long day of protests and counter protests and being bolted inside the chamber, every adjournment seemed to notch up the frustration levels in the House.

But still, the jousts remained verbal until the long wait times between adjournments started taking a toll.

“BJP members are being forced to remain inside the House. The House is adjourned for 15 minutes but is resuming after an hour. AAP knows that till the proceedings resume, we can’t leave the House,” said Neema Bhagat, BJP councillor and former east Delhi mayor.

At 11.05pm, some councillors snapped.

The hostilities suddenly took a violent turn, with at least two groups of councillors – from both the BJP and the AAP – raining blows on each other. Soon, it turned into a free-for-all, with councillors hurling whatever they could lay their hand on at their opponents.

Some emptied water bottles on their rivals, and then used them as projectiles. Others took off their footwear – sneakers, slippers, sandals – and used them to aim at others who were shouting.

Meanwhile, those who were relying on pure hand-to-hand combat, continued to do so.

The ninth adjournment was announced around 11.42pm, but by this time the chaos had hit a point where no one was listening or even waiting for the actual business to begin. The scenes of mayhem even surpassed the violence witnessed in the first failed sitting of the House on January 6.

For the rest of the night, the councillors alternated between cooling down and breaking into fisticuffs -- with breaks for meals and snacks thrown in.

After one of the adjournments, when the House did not resume at the scheduled time, at 3.09am, BJP members started singing: “Inteha ho gayi intezar ki, aai na kuch khabar hamare mayor ki”, parodying a popular Bollywood song about waiting endlessly. Another group of councillors then started reciting the Hanuman Chalisa, as several others chimed in.

But the peace was short-lived. A couple more adjournments later, some members even took the brawl outside the House chamber on fourth floor where a police team separated councillors who were beating each other up.

The House then convened again, for the 12th time, at 5.08am.

This time, the focus was the ballot box inside the polling booth set up in the corner of the House, holding 47 votes that had been cast already. The box was first hurled into the air, then a BJP tried to pour a soft drink inside it to destroy the votes already cast. The polling booth, too, was damaged. A group of rival women councillors then climbed onto the dais, shouting at each other. Some fell in their attempts to punch and slap each other, and other women from the two groups joined the fight.

The next sitting was summoned at 6am, but had the same result. This time, the members broke microphones and toppled the polling booth. Another one-hour adjournment was announced, but the House resumed only two hours later at 8.27am with the mayor greeting members with, “Good morning.”

Oberoi informed the House that she has consulted lawyers, and that there is no ban on using phones inside the polling booth. “CCTV footage will be examined to check the perpetrators of violence and charges will be levied against those who damaged the municipal property,” she added. Meanwhile, BJP councillor Amit Nagpal who was called to continue the voting process, snatched the ballot paper bundle from municipal secretariat staff and tore it. This led to another adjournment.

At around 9.40am, when the House resumed for the last time, Oberoi announced that action will be taken against BJP’s Rekha Gupta, who was the party’s mayor candidate, and Amit Nagpal, and added that the quantum of punishment will be fixed in the next meeting.

She finally adjourned the House till 10am on Friday.

Delhi BJP spokesperson Praveen Shankar Kapoor said, “We demand that the video recording of the entire meeting after 6pm on Wednesday be kept in safe custody so that appropriate action can be taken against AAP councillors seen hitting BJP members.”.

AAP MLA Atishi said that if this was the precedent that the BJP wants to set, then in the future no election will be made possible, because the losing party will always ask for a revote. She alleged that the BJP in the MCD House is making a mockery of democracy. Atishi appealed to the BJP to accept the mandate of the residents of Delhi and give AAP the opportunity to work for the next five years. “My only appeal to the BJP is that they have to learn to accept the mandate of the people. They were given an opportunity to run the government at the MCD for the last 15 years, but now the people have thrown them out of power and they have to accept it. “If AAP fail to deliver then the BJP has the right to go to the people five year later and ask for their votes. This is what is called a democracy. they did not want the elections in the MCD to be conducted and therefore during each sitting of the House they have tried to look for some excuse or the other to delay the voting process”