New Delhi, Feb 15 (PTI) The BJP became the single largest party in the MCD House on Saturday after three AAP councilors switched over, boosting the saffron party’s chances of winning the mayoral polls scheduled in April.
Officials said the development will have no immediate impact on AAP’s mayor whose term is set be over in March. Anti-defection law is not applicable in case of councilors switching sides.
The three councillors who switched over to the BJP are: Anita Basoya (Andrews Ganj), Nikhil Chaprana (Hari Nagar) and Dharamvir (R K Puram).
Their joining has taken the BJP’s strength in the MCD House to 116, while the AAP now has 114 members. The Congress has eight members.
The MCD House has a strength of 250 members. There are 12 vacancies — 11 members got elected as MLA in the recent assembly poll and one was elected as MP in Lok Sabha elections.
Welcoming the councilors, city BJP president Virendra Sachdeva said Delhi will have a “triple engine” government — at the Centre, assembly and municipal level — at the right time to develop it as the capital of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision under a ‘Viksit Bharat”.
Sachdeva said the councilors joined the BJP to make Delhi a clean and beautiful city.
In the wake of its recent resounding victory in the Assembly polls, the BJP is eyeing a “triple-engine government” in Delhi by securing the post of mayor. The BJP won 48 of the 70 Assembly seats, ousting the AAP from power after a decade.
The mayoral election is scheduled in April. The AAP had won the last mayoral election, held in November 2024, by three votes.
Besides the councilors, the seven Lok Sabha MPs (all of BJP), three Rajya Sabha MPs (all of AAP) and 14 nominated MLAs in Delhi are voters in the polls for mayor and deputy mayor of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi.
The BJP is also going to have 10 of its MLAs nominated to the MCD, while the AAP will have four nominations for the civic body, said BJP leaders.
In the February 5 Assembly polls, eight BJP councilors and three AAP councillors got elected to the assembly.
In the 2022 MCD polls, the AAP had won 134 wards, the BJP 104, the Congress nine and three are Independents. PTI VIT TIR TIR
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