BJP bags last vacant seat of MCD after AAP, Cong boycott

New Delhi: The BJP won the last vacant seat of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi's 18-member Standing Committee unopposed on Friday as the councillors of the ruling AAP and Congress boycotted the election.

The BJP's candidate Sunder Singh got all 115 votes of the party's councillors while the AAP's Nirmala Kumari did not receive any vote. The standing committee is the highest decision-making body of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi.

With this poll result, the BJP now has 10 members in the panel while the ruling AAP has only eight. This was the first time that the election was held without the participation of AAP and Congress councillors. The seat had fallen vacant after BJP councillor Kamaljeet Sehrawat was elected as the Lok Sabha MP from West Delhi. The BJP has wrongly overpowered the Municipal Corporation of Delhi and stole the mandate, AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal alleged on Friday after the saffron party won the last vacant seat of the civic body's standing committee. Addressing the Delhi Assembly, Kejriwal said that according to rules only the mayor can convene a meeting of the MCD House but the lieutenant governor changed it and directed an additional commissioner of the civic body to do it. "Is this election?" He posed and accused the BJP of resorting to "hooliganism".

The former chief minister claimed that as per the rule, a notice had to be sent to every councillor 72 hours before the meeting, but it was not followed. In the election, the BJP's Sunder Singh got all 115 votes of the BJP councillors while the AAP's Nirmala Kumari did not receive any vote.