MCD battle goes from House to court, streets

Despite three attempts, the MCD House is yet to elect people to the key posts required for the functioning of the civic body.

The battle over the delayed MCD mayor elections reached the Supreme Court on Tuesday with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) demanding early polls and an order to restrain the nominated aldermen from voting in the House, even as members of AAP and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) protested against each other for stalling the election process.

AAP's mayoral candidate Shelly Oberoi with party leaders during a protest near the BJP headquarters in New Delhi. (PTI)

The plea was filed by AAP’s mayor candidate Shelly Oberoi and party’s leader of the House in MCD Mukesh Goel -- the second time the two leaders petitioned the top court over the mayor polls. They had filed a similar petition on January 1, but withdrew it last week after the LG fixed a fresh date for convening MCD House.

The petition was mentioned on Tuesday by senior advocate Abhishek Singhvi before a bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud for urgent listing. Singhvi said, “It is a murder of democracy. Two months have gone by without elections. This is absolutely brazen.”

The bench, also comprising justices PS Narasimha and JB Pardiwala allowed the matter to be listed on Wednesday.

The Deen Dayal Upadhyay Marg in central Delhi, where both BJP and AAP headquarters are located, witnessed rival protests by the leaders and supporters of the two parties. They blamed each other for stalling mayor elections and creating a ruckus in the House. Member of Parliaments, MLAs, councillors and leaders of the local units of the two parties joined the protests.

The AAP leaders gathered near BJP headquarters and raised slogans against the party. “We have video evidence to show how the BJP councillors created a ruckus in the House, engaged in hooliganism, and raised slogans, while the AAP councillors sat quietly and the presiding officer adjourned the House. This means that the whole conspiracy was planned,” said AAP chief spokesperson Saurabh Bharadwaj.

Delhi BJP working president Virendra Sachdeva blamed the AAP for the chaos during mayor polls. “During the elections, AAP leaders resorted to hooliganism. After snatching the presiding officer’s mike, they created ruckus by climbing on the table and hurting BJP women councillors,” Sachdeva said during protests outside AAP headquarters.

Bharadwaj countered that the BJP stalled the polls because the BJP-led central government has been “deceitfully” occupying the MCD for the past one year. “The presiding officer claimed that their nominated councillors would vote in the mayoral polls. It is not in the Constitution. Also elections to the posts of mayor, deputy mayor and members of the Standing Committee cannot be held on one ballot. We will expose their dishonesty before the Supreme Court,” the AAP MLA said.

The AAP petition on Tuesday came after the February 6 House session ended in a ruckus as members of AAP staged protests against the House presiding officer’s decision to allow the 10 aldermen to vote for the posts of mayor, deputy mayor and Standing Committee. Certain elected members in the House were restrained from voting on disciplinary grounds. The House was subsequently adjourned.

This was the third time that the House met but failed to elect the key posts required for the functioning of the MCD. Earlier, the House met on January 6 followed by January 24 but on both occasions, proceedings had to be adjourned due to chaos in the House over precedence being given to aldermen as against elected members for taking oath.

The Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP scored a historic victory by sweeping 134 out of 250 wards in the MCD poll results declared on December 7. The AAP ended the 15-year reign of the BJP which managed to win only 104 wards.

The petition said that the elections to the MCD posts should be held as per the Delhi Municipal Corporation Act that does not permit voting rights to aldermen.

After AAP moved the Supreme Court seeking court-monitored mayoral polls in a time-bound manner, Bharadwaj said: “We have shared with the Supreme Court, the country’s highest court, details about how the BJP’s central government has tried to form its own government within the MCD through unfair means and hooliganism, which is illegal and unconstitutional. Now, the Supreme Court is the only one from whom we expect anything. We have turned to the strongest judiciary in the world in hopes of receiving justice since the largest central government of the largest party in the world wants to use this method to crush the smallest party in the world.”

He also tweeted to thank the Supreme Court for listing the matter for Wednesday. “Gratitude to SC for listing MCD mayor matter for tomorrow. SC is the only hope in this country to uphold constitution and law of the land,” he tweeted.