The North Delhi mayoral elections were abuzz with political ‘gimmickry’, show of strength and opposition Congress frowning over BJP supporters exchanging pleasantries after their party councillors won the polls in the civic agency’s House meeting on Tuesday.
Ravinder Gupta of BJP was elected the new Mayor of North Delhi Municipal Corporation. He defeated Congress party’s Harsh Sharma with a margin of 41 votes. In all 95 votes were polled, of which two votes were declared invalid. Gupta secured 67 votes, while Sharma managed to get 26 votes.Soon after the elections were over, Leader of Opposition in North Corporation Mukesh Goel, wasting no time, came down hard on the newly-elected Mayor Gupta for launching a helpline for registering complaints related to sanitation and corruption, and termed it as a political gimmick. “There is a protocol that after the announcement of results, runners up address the House and congratulate the winners. But due to his hurry in launching the faulty helpline, this could not happen,” Goel said. He added that the helpline was launched in a haphazard manner even as it was not working properly. “It is such a shame that even though the Delhi BJP President (Satish Upadhyay) did not receive any response on the helpline, he tried to mislead the House to save the newly-elected Mayor,” he added.
Goel said that instead of listing his agenda of development work and ending the financial crunch in the corporation, the newly-elected mayor was keen on launching this helpline.
“The development work are lying pending, employees of the civic agency are not getting salaries and pensions on time for the past couple of months,” he added.But Gupta said that the ‘Mayor’s Helpline’ (9643096430) is a step towards ‘Swachh Bharat Abhiyan’ and good governance.
He said that complaints can also be registered through SMS or WhatsApp or by uploading pictures, which will be immediately directed from the Mayor’s office to the concerned zonal Deputy Commissioner’s office for sanitation related issue. There will be redressal of sanitation complaints within 24 working hours. The Mayor’s office, which is the centre of the helpline, will also reach out to complainants to take their feedback.
Gupta said that the complaints related to corruption will be directed to Director of Vigilance who will investigate the matter and put up the report to Mayor’s office. Neelam Goel of BJP was elected as the Deputy Mayor of North Delhi. She defeated Congress’ Guddi Devi.
Yogender Chandolia and Mohan Prasad Bhardwaj of BJP and Mukesh Goel of Congress got unanimously elected as the members of the Standing Committee.
Members of Parliament Harsh Vardhan, Meenakshi Lekhi, Manoj Tiwari and Udit Raj also voted in the mayoral polls. The Aam Aadmi Party MLAs gave these elections a miss.