Delhi BJP welcomes SC order on mayoral poll

The Delhi BJP on Friday welcomed the Supreme Court order on mayoral poll, saying it always wanted a mayor to be elected as soon as possible.

The saffron party blamed the Aam Aadmi Party for the delay and alleged that they moved the SC with an intention to postpone the poll.

The Supreme Court on Friday said the nominated members of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) cannot vote in the mayoral election.

The top court's order came on a plea moved by the ruling AAP mayoral candidate, Shelly Oberoi, seeking an early conduct of the election.

Read | Nominated members of MCD cannot vote in Delhi mayoral poll: SC

"We welcome the Supreme Court's decision. We have always wanted the elections to be held as soon as possible. It is the AAP which did not let elections take place in the last three sittings of the MCD House," Delhi BJP leader Harish Khurana said.

The AAP had emerged as a clear winner in the December 4 polls, bagging 134 wards and ending the BJP's 15-year rule in the civic body.

The BJP won 104 wards to finish second, while the Congress won nine seats in the 250-member Municipal House.

According to the Delhi Municipal Corporation (DMC) Act, 1957, the mayor and the deputy mayor are to be elected in the very first session of the House after the civic polls.

However, it's been over two months since the municipal elections were held and Delhi is yet to get a mayor.

On February 6, the Municipal House in Delhi had failed to elect a mayor for the third time in a row in a month, following ruckus over the decision to allow aldermen to vote in the mayoral poll, even as the AAP had alleged a "planned conspiracy" by the BJP to stall the process, saying it would move the SC to seek a "court-monitored" election.

The petitioner had moved the apex court on February 7.

The apex court had on February 8 sought the responses of the lieutenant governor's (LG) office, MCD's pro-tem presiding officer Satya Sharma and others on Oberoi's plea.

A bench comprising Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and Justices PS Narasimha and JB Pardiwala during a hearing on Friday directed that the election of the Delhi mayor shall be conducted at the first MCD meet and once elected, the mayor shall preside over the deputy mayor's election.