After 3 failed attempts, MCD to make fourth bid to elect mayor on Feb 16

Delhi LG VK Saxena has given his nod for convening the next session of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi House on February 16 for election to the post of mayor, official sources said on Sunday.

The government had sent the proposal to hold the House session on February 16 and Saxena has accepted it, they said.

Three successive meetings of the House were adjourned in the last one month amid ruckus and commotion over the decision to give voting rights to aldermen without electing the mayor, deputy mayor and members of the standing committee of the civic body.

After the civic polls in December, the House was first convened on January 6 but was adjourned following acrimonious exchanges between members of the Bharatiya Janata Party and Aam Aadmi Party.

The second municipal House held on January 24 was briefly adjourned after the oath-taking ceremony, and was later adjourned till the next date by the pro tem presiding officer.

After that, the House was adjourned on last Monday again for the third time, a month after the first municipal House.

AAP has alleged that the mayoral election could not be held as the BJP was "strangulating democracy and the Constitution of India", while the saffron party accused the Aam Aadmi Party of coming out with excuses to stall the mayoral poll and blamed it for the stalemate.

AAP had emerged as a clear winner in the December 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 wards in the 250-member municipal House.

The civic body in Delhi had 272 wards across its three corporations – NDMC, SDMC, and EDMC – which existed from 2012-2022, before being reunified into a sole MCD, which formally came into existence on May 22 last year.

The municipal House in Delhi on February 6 failed to elect a mayor following a ruckus over the decision to allow aldermen to vote in the mayoral poll, even as AAP alleged a "planned conspiracy" by the BJP to stall the process.