Delhi mayoral polls on April 25; BJP set to take posts amid AAP’s boycott

BJP councillor Satya Sharma has been nominated as the presiding officer to oversee the election process

Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) Raja Iqbal Singh is poised to become the next mayor of Delhi on Friday, after the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) announced a boycott of the election. The AAP lost its majority in the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) following a series of defections to the BJP in the wake of the latter’s victory in the Delhi Assembly elections in February.

MCD meetings have been marred by violence and disagreements over the past few years. (Representative image/HT Archive)

Although the Congress has fielded Mandeep Singh, a councillor from Nangloi, the numbers overwhelmingly favour the BJP, which currently has the support of 135 councillors. With 119 AAP councillors abstaining and 12 seats vacant, the 274-member electoral college offers little room for contest. The Congress has just eight councillors.

A senior MCD official said that candidates are allowed to withdraw their nominations till be voting exercise begins. “An announcement will be made by the presiding officer at the beginning of the house meeting to check if candidates want to withdraw their names. If the Congress withdraws its candidature, the BJP will win unopposed. In either case, Singh is likely to win easily,” the official, not wishing to be named, said.

Meanwhile, BJP councillor Satya Sharma has been nominated as the presiding officer to oversee the election process. Sharma has overseen all four mayoral elections since the 2022 MCD polls.

Fifty-four-year-old Raja Iqbal Singh has been serving as the leader of Opposition in the MCD for the past two-and-a-half years and previously served as the mayor of North MCD, before the civic bodies were unified. He is a second-term councillor from the Mukherjee Nagar ward (previously GTB Nagar). Singh comes from a political family which has links with the Akali Dal.

To be sure, the term of councillors is five years but elections to mayoral posts are held every year, usually in the first meeting of a financial year in April. Following the unification of three erstwhile MCDs in 2022, Shelly Oberoi was elected mayor in February 2023 after a series of meetings marred by legal disputes and violence. Oberoi was re-elected mayor in April 2023 and continued till November 2024, when Mahesh Kumar Khichi won by three votes.

In a press conference on Thursday, Oberoi said, “The MCD mayor election is scheduled for Friday. The AAP will completely boycott the election for mayor and deputy mayor. This time, the AAP will not participate in these elections... Now, the BJP has a triple-engine government in Delhi. We expect the BJP to fulfil all its promises to the people and not make any excuse. The AAP will play the role of a constructive opposition and will hold the BJP accountable.”

The BJP’s “triple-engine government” refers to a situation when it holds power at all three tiers of governance — civic body, state legislature and central government. The last time a similar situation persisted was from 2004 to 2007, during the Congress’ regime. The tenure saw push in infrastructure, reforms and developmental projects gathering pace, with significant progress in flyovers, Metro and road network. However, it was also marred by financial irregularities and corruption allegations.

Delhi BJP spokesperson Praveen Shankar Kapoor said that the AAP was “disintegrating”.

“After two-and-a-half years of stagnant work, their councillors now want to break away from the party. Frustrated with the possibility of cross-voting and party infighting, AAP leaders have announced a boycott of the MCD mayor election and imposed undemocratic restrictions on councillors attending the house,” he said.

“Delhi is set to get a BJP mayor tomorrow, and with the triple-engine government, development ambitions will be realised. We will see that the councillors’ support for development is all encompassing,” Kapoor said.

The AAP has seen a complete turnaround in its political fortune in the MCD over the past 2.5 years, since winning 134 seats in the 2022 MCD elections, against the BJP’s 104, and looked set for a long innings. In February 2023, Shelly Oberoi defeated BJP candidate (and current CM) Rekha Gupta to become the mayor by 34 votes. But by November 2024, the AAP’s winning margin shrank to just three votes amid signs of cross-voting. Given the defections after the 2025 Delhi assembly polls —anti-defection law does not apply to the MCD — the BJP has the support of 135 members in the 274-member electoral college, compared to AAP’s 119.