NEW DELHI: The stage is set for the high-stakes Delhi mayoral election on Wednesday, which will be a direct contest between incumbent Shelly Oberoi from the AAP and BJP’s Shikha Rai.
The AAP is the ruling party in the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD). The two candidates, current mayor Oberoi and BJP’s Rai had earlier filed their nominations for the mayoral polls slated to be held on April 26.
Oberoi was elected as the mayor on February 22. She defeated BJP’s Rekha Gupta by a margin of 34 votes. Oberoi polled 150 votes, while Gupta received 116 of the total 266 votes polled.
The post of mayor sees five single-year terms on a rotational basis, with the first year reserved for women, the second for the open category, the third for the reserved category and the remaining two again for the open category. The city gets a new mayor after the end of a financial year.
Oberoi and her fellow party man Aaley Mohammad Iqbal filed their nominations earlier this month for the posts of mayor and deputy mayor, respectively, for a possible second consecutive term, with the Arvind Kejriwal-led party exuding confidence that its candidates are poised for a win.
The BJP too has entered the fray and senior party leader Rai, the councillor from the Greater Kailash-1 ward, is its candidate for the mayoral poll, while Soni Pandey, an activist of the Purvanchal Morcha and the councillor from ward number 249, will be its candidate for the deputy mayor's post.
Delhi had got a mayor on February 22 in the fourth attempt since the earlier elections were stalled amid a ruckus over voting rights being given to nominated members.
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.
The civic polls held on December 4 last year were the first after the three corporations were unified into the MCD and a fresh delimitation exercise was carried out, reducing the number of wards from 272 in 2012 to 250.
The AAP had emerged victorious in the high-stakes polls.
(With inputs from PTI)