NEW DELHI:
The mayoral candidates from the ruling BJP were elected unopposed to the posts in the three municipal corporations of Delhi on Wednesday, officials said.
Raja Iqbal Singh (GTB ward) is the new mayor of North Delhi and Archana (Holambi Khurd) is his deputy.
Both were elected unopposed in a session of the NDMC House held at the Civic Centre here, a senior official said.
The last date to file nominations for the posts of mayor, deputy mayor and members of the NDMC panel in the BJP-ruled civic body was June 8.
Singh and Archana had filed their nominations from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for the posts of mayor and deputy mayor respectively.
The elections to the above posts were mere formalities during the meeting of the NDMC House since only a nomination each was filed for those.
The members of the standing committee in the NDMC were also elected unopposed, the official said.
For members of the NDMC panel, Jogi Ram Jain, Vijay Bhagat, both from the BJP, and Rajiv Yadav of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) were elected unopposed, he added.
Besides, Yogesh Verma of the BJP had also filed his nomination for the post of member, advisory council of the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) and was elected unopposed, the official said.
The newly-elected North Delhi mayor said protecting the city from the anticipated third wave of COVID-19 would be among his priorities, besides sanitation, education and health.
He said stress would be laid on making the corporation financially self-reliant.
Before becoming the mayor, Singh had served as the chairman of the Civil Lines Ward Committee and as a two-time chairman of the DEMS committee, officials said.
Besides, at the meeting of the NDMC House, 21 condolence motions were read out to pay tributes to people who have died lately. One of the motions was to pay tributes to 59 corporation employees who got infected with COVID-19 while discharging their duties and died.
In the South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) too, the new mayor and deputy mayor were elected unopposed, an official said.
Mukesh Suryan, from a ward in Sagarpur West, had filed papers for the post of South Delhi mayor and Pawan Sharma had filed his nomination for the post of deputy mayor, the civic body had earlier said.
At the meeting of the East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC), Sunder Aggarwal and Kiran Vaidya of the BJP were elected unanimously as the mayor and the deputy mayor of East Delhi respectively.
Aggarwal and Vaidya represent Ward No. 27 (Raghubarpura) and Ward No. 1 (Mayur Vihar) respectively.
Besides, Beer Singh Panwar (Ward No. 35, Dilshad Garden), Himanshi Pandey (Ward No. 13, Kishan Kunj) and Mohini (Ward No. 34, New Seemapuri) were also elected unopposed as the members of the EDMC Standing Committee, officials said.
Aggarwal thanked the party leadership and said he will work with full devotion.
He said it would be his priority to make the EDMC self-reliant, adding that he will work for the improvement of the sanitation system and public health.
The outgoing mayors are Jai Prakash (NDMC), Anamika (SDMC) and Nirmal Jain (EDMC).
All the three municipal corporations in Delhi are controlled by the BJP.
The mayoral five-year tenure sees five single-year terms on a rotation basis, with the first year being reserved for women, the second for the open category, the third for the reserved category and the remaining two also being in the open category.
The mayoral polls had got delayed last year too due to the coronavirus pandemic.
