BJP’s Kanwar Sain is new mayor

The BJP’s Dr Kanwar Sain became the 23rd mayor of Delhi on Thursday. He defeated the Congress’ Darshana Jatav by over 100 votes. HT Correspondent reports.

The BJP’s Dr Kanwar Sain became the 23rd mayor of Delhi on Thursday. He defeated the Congress’ Darshana Jatav by over 100 votes.

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Of the 255 valid votes, Sain (50) received 182 against Jatav’s 73 while eight votes were declared invalid.

The post was reserved for a Scheduled Caste candidate according to the rule of rotation and Sain became the fourth mayor from the category since the system’s start in 1997.

An elected councillor from Vishwas Nagar since 2007, Sain’s path to the post became a cakewalk only after the ruling BJP could convince rebel candidate Yogendra Chandolia to withdraw his candidature. Incidentally, Chandolia was among the seven candidates who remained absent during voting. Similarly, none of the MPs (all eight of them) and only six of 14 MLAs from Delhi were present and voted during the election.

The BJP’s Azad Singh — who is the brother of late Delhi chief minister Sahib Singh Verma — won the post of deputy mayor. Of the three contenders, the BSP’s Sanjay Gupta had withdrawn from the fray leaving only Amrit Lal Singhal from the Congress contesting against Singh.

After Sain was declared the winner to the post of mayor, Leader of Opposition Jai Kishen Sharma proposed Singh’s name for the deputy’s post. Leader of the House Subhash Arya seconded it.

At the same meeting, the BJP’s Ram Kishan Singhal and Suman Gupta and Raziya Sultana of the Congress were elected unopposed as members of the MCD Standing Committee after BSP candidate Surjeet Singh withdrew his name from the contest.