Delhi civic body set to get standing committee on June 12

. The BJP, comprising 11 members of the 18-member panel, is in pole position to win the race to panel chair

New Delhi

BJP’s Satya Sharma won the election to the standing committee. (RAJ K RAJ /HT PHOTO)

The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) finally has its standing committee members in place—Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) Satya Sharma winning the election for the 18th seat on Tuesday. This is expected to take forward projects stuck over the past 2.5 years as the committee could not be constituted due to legal tussles between the BJP and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).

The house of councillors also passed a resolution for constituting the standing committee on the day and the municipal secretariat issued a notice, for the election of the committee chair on June 12. The BJP, comprising 11 members of the 18-member panel, is in pole position to win this poll as well.

There was a heavy security presence at the Civic Centre on the day, as the election started around 2.40pm and voting ended around 4pm. The Congress boycotted the election and during counting, two votes were found invalid. At 4.25pm, mayor Raja Iqbal Singh announced Satya Sharma, a BJP councillor from Gautampuri ward, as the winner.

The standing committee is a powerful panel that controls the purse strings of the MCD. It comprises 18 members, 12 of whom are elected by zonal wards committees, and the remaining six are directly elected by the house. However, it was stuck for 30 months as, in February 2023, polls for the six direct members devolved into chaos, violence and pandemonium after former mayor Shelly Oberoi ruled that a re-poll would be held. The BJP moved the Delhi high court, which set aside Oberoi’s ruling in May 2024, resulting in both the AAP and BJP securing three seats.

Sharma beat AAP’s Hema, the councillor of the Jaitpur ward, by 35 votes (130-95). Sharma served as a mayor of the erstwhile East MCD and as presiding officer in previous mayoral elections. She is also a front-runner for the standing committee chair, party leaders said on condition of anonymity.

Projects and policies to move ahead

The formation of the panel on June 12 will pave the way for several stuck projects and policy matters to move forward. A senior MCD official said that the MCD commissioner has the power to clear projects up to ₹5 crore, but the standing committee needed to approve larger projects, besides layout plans for projects such as a new DTC township in Hari Nagar, hostel towers for Delhi University, IIFT Maidangarhi and another tower in DDU Marg near Press building.

In the absence of the key panel, MCD has been forced to provide extensions to private operators in multiple cases, including the contract to manage garbage in the central zone, which covers VIP pockets. This also led to delays in the biomining of landfills. The corporation has been unable to hire a private operator for Delhi’s first pet park in Jangpura, a toll tax collection agency and set up the Shahjahanabad Museum and Interpretation Centre near Lahori Gate.