NEW DELHI: The next meeting to elect the mayor of the MCD is hanging fire. The Presiding Officer of MCD is showing no haste in reconvening the adjourned meeting so far, even though a few days have passed since the fiasco repeated in the previous meeting, sources said.
Sources said that the Presiding Officer, Satya Sharma, has not contacted the L-G to officially inform him about the stalled mayoral poll. “The process to recall the meeting has not been initiated so far, unlike the previous time when the procedure re-started right after the first meeting was adjourned,” the source said.
One of the reasons is that the oath-taking of all councillors, including the ten aldermen, has been completed, which was one of the main agenda of BJP, they said. “The aldermen took an oath in the previous meeting, which could not be done during the first one. The BJP is relaxed since the aldermen are now eligible for voting in the selection of Standing Committee members,” the source said.
Meanwhile, sources also said that the MCD is not in favour of calling the meeting since the whole poll exercise, even if done successfully, will only give the elected mayor to work merely for a month.
“The whole procedure of recalling the meeting, which includes the submission of a file enclosing the events that took place in the previous meeting, choosing a date for election by the municipal secretary, getting approval from the commissioner, forwarding the file to the Delhi Government for further clearance, and finally getting approved by the L-G, will take 2-3 weeks.
If all goes as planned without any objection, then we can expect the election to be held February end. However, the elected mayor will only get to work for a month, and the House will have to go for re-election again in April,” a senior official explained.
The Delhi Municipal Act binds the civic body to hold mayoral elections “every year in April.” According to the act, a ‘year’ is defined as the commencement of the year on the 1st day of April, and unless there is some amendment to the Act or a gazette notification is issued, the tenure of the mayor to be elected will end on March 31, official said.
In 1997 as well, the MCD election was held in February but the mayor was not elected till March 31 since the civic body chief would have got only a month to function, they said.