New Delhi: The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) is planning to conduct ward committee elections in the third week of September. The civic body wants to cover all 12 zones over two days. The dates for the voting and counting process have not been decided yet. However, with the planning underway, the MCD is expected to release an official notification, stating the dates, in the next two days.
Along with that, the MCD is planning to hold elections simultaneously for the Standing Committee. As of now, an announcement regarding the dates is awaited. Once finalised, a notification inviting candidates for filing their nominations will be released, an official said, quoted by Times of India. They will have at least 7-10 days to either submit their names or withdraw them.
The next task, which is nominating the president officers for each ward committee, will be handled by Mayor Shelly Oberoi. She will make the final decision on the names for each of the 12 zones, according to an official.
Once the names are finalised, three ballot papers will be prepared listing the candidates for three positions: chairman, deputy chairman of ward committees, and Standing Committee member, across the 12 wards. The election will be held at the Civic Centre in the presence of the municipal secretary or their representative.
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For the Standing Committee, one member will be elected in a House meeting to fill the position left vacant by Kamaljeet Sehrawat, who won a Lok Sabha seat. The mayor will issue a separate notification for this. “After the election and once the 18-member quorum is completed, the election for the Standing Committee chairman will take place. The party with the most members is likely to get its chairman,” said an official.
Following the recent switch of five AAP councillors to BJP, AAP now has 129 councillors in MCD, while BJP has 110 and Congress has 9. There is one independent councillor and one vacant seat.
Regarding the distribution of councillors across the 12 zones, AAP holds the majority in five zones: South, West, Karol Bagh, City SP, and Rohini. BJP leads in seven zones: Civil Lines, Shahdara North, Shahdara South, Najafgarh, Keshavpuram, Central, and Narela.
Congress has two councillors in Central, four in Shahdara North, and one each in Shahdara South, Najafgarh, and Rohini. The party has yet to decide whether to support AAP in the ward committee elections. “We will discuss this with the party chief only after the election notification is issued,” said Farhad Suri, Congress in-charge in MCD and former Delhi mayor.