BJP wins mayoral polls in SDMC, EDMC

New Delhi: BJP councillors on Wednesday won the Mayor and deputy Mayors posts in both SDMC and EDMC defeating their Congress rivals in the mayoral polls.

BJP councillor Shyam Sharma was elected as the new South Delhi Mayor as he defeated his Congress rival by 25 votes in the SDMC mayoral polls held at the Civic Centre here.

Sharma, a ward councillor from Janakpuri (North) garnered 62 votes out of the total 99 votes polled while Congress' Praveen Rana got 37 in a 104-member South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) House.

"Out of the 104 councillors, seven had already vacated their seats earlier, which are now going to bypolls. Three of them were absent," a senior SDMC official said.

Out of the total 99 votes, five of them were polled by area MPs -- Meenakshi Lekhi, Maheish Girri, Parvez Saheb Singh Verma, Ramesh Bidhuri and Parvez Hashmi, the official said, adding, AAP councillor Desraj Raghav also voted.

Sharma, soon after being elected, addressed the House and said, "He will make sure BJP fares well in the upcoming bypolls and that there will be no partiality under his administration."

The erstwhile unified Municipal Corporation of Delhi was trifurcated in 2012 into North, South and East Delhi Municipal Corporations or NDMC, EDMC and SDMC.

The MCD has been BJP-controlled for the past nearly 10 years. All three outgoing mayors are from BJP, including Subhash Arya of SDMC, who is the one of the veteran leaders of the party.

In the East Delhi mayoral polls held at the EDMC headquarters, BJP's New Usmanpur councillor Satya Sharma trounced Congress rival Taj Mohammed. While Sharma bagged 41 votes, Mohammed got 18.

In the 64-member EDMC House, 60 votes were polled out of which one was declare invalid. Out of the two area MPs, Mahesh Girri exercised his franchise here as well while the other was absent. Five councillors were also absent, a senior EDMC official said.

Speaking to reporters after being elected, the East Delhi Mayor said her priority would be to take forward the 'Swachh Bharat Mission' besides working in areas of health and education.

"Wi-Fi service would be started in 50 EDMC schools. She also said that in the coming year, emphasis would be on learning through computer education by extending computer- aided learning scheme in all municipal schools," she was quoted as saying in an EDMC statement.

In the elections for deputy mayor posts in SDMC and EDMC, BJP's Shashi Prabha defeated Congress' Satish Gupta while Raj Kumar Dhillon won over her Congress rival Raj Kumari in the respective Houses for the post.

The post of Mayor sees five single-year terms on a rotation basis, with the first year being reserved for women, the second for open category, third for reserved category, and the remaining two also being in open category.