AAP to boycott Delhi mayoral polls slated for April 25

New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is all set to capture the governance structure in the national capital with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Monday announcing that it will not contest the April 25 Delhi Mayor election, as the saffron party-engineered defections punctured the Arvind Kejriwal-led party's prospects in ruling the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) after the Assembly debacle.

The announcement was made by AAP Delhi Convenor Saurabh Bharadwaj and Leader of Opposition in Delhi Assembly Atishi, four days ahead of the Mayoral election that is held annually.

While AAP had won a majority in the December 2022 elections, it has lost over a dozen councillors to the BJP in the recent past.

The election of a BJP Mayor after nearly two-and-half years will mark the BJP's dominance of the governance structure in the national capital, as the party now rules the Centre, Delhi and MCD.

While it took a political call not to expose its numbers, the AAP believes that it could help in cornering the BJP in governance issues.

Explaining the rationale of the decision, Bharadwaj said a number of councillors were made to defect using various methods through which the BJP has now acquired majority in the MCD. "There are no ideological reasons for these defections. AAP does not want to do this kind of politics," he said.

Bharadwaj said, "the BJP had stopped the MCD election earlier too. Wards were shifted during delimitation. There was huge fraud and corruption during the process. Despite this, BJP lost the municipal elections...After much drama by BJP councillors and ongoing defections, we have decided not to field our candidate this time."

Atishi said BJP practices capturing power through "backdoor" and it was witnessed in several states in the country.

"BJP did a lot of rigging during the MCD elections but still it lost badly. Even after this it did not stop and the councillors were poached. We don't do the politics of sabotage and horse-trading...Now BJP should form its triple engine government and fulfill its promises made to the people of Delhi without any excuses," she said.

The anti-defection law does not apply in the MCD, whose strength is pegged at 250. However, ten MPs from Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha and 14 MLAs nominated by the Speaker have voting rights in the Mayor election, taking the total votes to 274.

In the 2022 elections to the MCD, AAP had won 134 wards against BJP's 104 and Congress nine among others. At present, there are 12 vacancies after 11 (8 BJP and 3 AAP) of them were elected as MLA and one as an MP (BJP). The BJP's current strength in the MCD has increased to 119 while AAP has around 111 councillors. Along with MLAs and MPs, BJP has 136 votes against 118 for AAP.