Delhi’s Civic Centre descended into yet another bout of chaos and brawling as councillors from the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) clashed on Friday evening over the process to vote members of the standing committee of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), the violence marking the lowest point yet in a series of undignified and violent exchanges in the House over the past three weeks.
One councillor collapsed, apparently having fainted, and another showed a bleeding cut on her arm with both sides accusing each other of hooliganism, moments after members came to blows. The mayor said the that elections were scrapped and set February 27 as a fresh polling date, although a report by the municipal secretary Bhagwan Singh appeared to complicate the matter.
Singh, in his report, disputed the mayor’s reason for invalidating a vote and said according to the ballots tallied, three members from AAP, two from BJP and one independent member (who joined BJP since the election) secured adequate numbers. The report, however, is a recommendation that has to be ratified by the mayor.
To be sure, the one independent member has since joined the BJP.
The trigger was the vexed process to elect six members to the standing committee, the highest decision-making body of MCD, which was aborted for the second time — a previous attempt was made on Wednesday, which lasted in an impasse that stretched overnight into Thursday.
On Friday, BJP members alleged they had been told informally that three members each were elected from both the parties — a result that would give them crucial hold on the civic body — but mayor Shelly Oberoi declared one of the votes as invalid. AAP members denied the allegations, saying that the unreleased results showed a clear victory for the party and the disqualification was due to procedural problems.
The single vote could tilt the balance of the standing committee in either party’s favour. The committee is an 18-member body, where the remaining members are elected by zonal ward committees, where too the fight is expected to be a close one between AAP and BJP.
Along with aldermen, appointed by the lieutenant governor and members who have voting rights in zonal committees, this balance could make or break the BJP’s control of the civic body’s key decision-making panels.
“The voting process to elect the members of the standing committee took place once again and it was all peaceful even until the counting process. But as soon as the BJP realised it was at the losing end, their members climbed on the stage and physically tried to attack mayor Shelly Oberoi. She eventually was forced to escape the attack and save her life,” said senior AAP leader and MLA Atishi, accusing the BJP of “hooliganism”.
The BJP hit back, saying AAP members were tampering with the election results. “Election results are being tampered with, wrong announcements are being made and they’re indulging in fist fights. Several of our councillors were injured. An FIR is being lodged. The manner in which they’ve been beaten up, AAP has shown that they are a party of goons,” said Vijender Gupta, the former Delhi BJP president.
Harsh Malhotra, a general secretary of BJP, said the corporation should be dissolved and the party will approach the court with the demand.
Atishi, in the statement issued later, said: “We will take this matter to the police and the judiciary and we want all those BJP councillors who attacked Dr Shelly Oberoi to be sent to jail.”
Oberoi, during the endorsement of the result, had said, “I refuse to sign on a wrong result”, and ordered a recount.
The error in the vote held invalid was, AAP leaders said, that the member had repeated the second preference for two names, instead of indicating who would be a third preference.
Typically, the ballot paper has seven names on which members are supposed to number 1-7 in the order of preference. The purportedly erroneous paper contained the preferences numbers as 1, 2, 2 instead of 1, 2, 3…
Around 6.48pm, the mayor announced that there will be no recounting as parties were not sending their observer agents for the process.
What followed was the worst of the commotion.
During the melee, AAP councillor Ashok Kumar Maanu collapsed on the floor of the house and other members were seen reviving him by rubbing his feet. Meenakshi Sharma, a BJP councillor from Anarkali ward, was seen bleeding from her hand. “I have been attacked with a sharp object by people from AAP,” Sharma alleged outside the house.
Aashu Thakur, another AAP councillor from CR Park, was seen being pulled away and dragged by her stole by a group of councillors. Amit Nagpal, a BJP councillor was seen waving a glass sheet while another councillor was seen smashing the glass-paper stand to pieces. Members were seen running out of house seeking security while multiple brawls continued in different parts of the chamber.
An ambulance was called to the Civic Centre to take several municipal councillors to nearby hospital for treatment and police case.
MCD, usually the first stop for citizens while availing of services or documentation for a variety of purposes, comprises two wings — a deliberative wing of elected councillors ceremonially headed by the mayor and an executive wing of civic bureaucracy headed by a municipal commissioner appointed by the Union government that implements policies and provisions of the DMC act. The real decision-making power is with the house of councillors, the standing committee, and the commissioner’s office — overlaps that are likely to lead to more stand-offs between AAP and the Union government.
Friday’s episode means that since the MCD election results were declared on December 7, 2022, it has now been nearly 80 days that there is no working mechanism since some of the key positions and members are yet to be elected. The election for the mayor took four attempts before a Supreme Court order eventually paved way for it.