Delhi gets a ‘triple engine govt’ after 18 years

Two and a half years after losing the 2022 civic polls, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Friday reclaimed control of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) in what was effectively a walkover.

With the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) boycotting the mayoral election, the process was reduced to a formality. After a 90-minute-long session, BJP’s candidate Raja Iqbal Singh secured 133 votes against Congress’s Mandeep Singh, who received just eight. One vote was declared invalid.

The win cements the BJP’s dominance across all three tiers of Delhi’s governance — the Centre, the Delhi Assembly, and now the MCD — a “triple engine government,” as the party describes it. This is the first time since 2007 that a single party has controlled all three levels in the Capital.

Delhi’s new mayor Raja Iqbal Singh, a two-term councillor from Mukherjee Nagar, will lead the MCD’s deliberative wing for the next year. Jai Bhagwan Yadav, councillor from Begumpur, was elected unopposed as deputy mayor after Congress’s Ariba Khan withdrew her candidature following Singh’s request.

Singh said the administration’s immediate priorities would be to clean up Delhi, improve sanitation, desilt drains to reduce waterlogging, and revive policy work stalled over the past 2.5 years.

“The AAP has turned Delhi into a garbage dump. People will see a stark change in three months,” he said. Singh also promised to withdraw the “garbage user charge” and expedite the formation of the Standing Committee, which controls the MCD’s finances and has not been constituted since the last election.

One-sided election

The House of Councillors convened at 2.12pm with a two-minute silence to honour the victims of the recent terrorist attack in Pahalgam, Jammu and Kashmir. Decorations in the chamber were subdued in light of the tragedy. AAP councillors were absent, having boycotted the election after a string of defections to the BJP cost the party its majority.

The voting concluded at 3.35pm, and by 3.52pm, presiding officer Satya Sharma declared Raja Iqbal Singh as the new mayor.

Following the defeat in mayoral polls, and with a request from the newly elected mayor, Congress’s deputy mayor candidate Ariba Khan withdrew here candidature leading to unopposed victory of BJP candidate Jai Bhagwan Yadav.

Delhi BJP president Virendra Sachdeva said Singh’s election would pave the way for smoother civic governance. “The new mayor will fast-track the formation of the Standing Committee so that financial and administrative decisions can once again be taken in accordance with the MCD Act. Delhiites will soon feel the impact of a triple-engine government,” he said.

The AAP’s 2.5-year tenure in the MCD was marked by constant friction with the bureaucracy, which resisted several of its key proposals—regularising 12,000 sanitation workers, reducing user charges, waiving property tax, implementing MLA-LAD projects, and the transfer of officials. The non-formation of the Standing Committee and 27 other statutory and ad hoc panels paralysed decision-making, turning the MCD into a legislative deadlock.

The new BJP administration has promised to break that logjam.

An MCD official, who asked not to be identified, said the focus will now shift to elections for ward committees in the 12 administrative zones. “Each zone is governed by a ward committee and contributes one member to the Standing Committee. Elections will be needed in three zones where seats are vacant. These are necessary to complete the 12-member Standing Committee,” the official said.

With AAP’s Leader of the House Mukesh Goyal having resigned, the BJP is expected to soon appoint its own leader to the post. “Over the next month, the formation of ad hoc and special committees will also be on the agenda,” the official added.

The MCD is now set for a flurry of internal elections, including those for ward committees and various panels, over the next two months. These bodies, ideally formed in the first year of the term, may finally take shape midway through the corporation’s five-year tenure.