The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has won the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) election as it pulled ahead of the BJP, which has ruled the civic body for the past 15 years, after over five hours of vote counting.
Arvind Kejriwal’s party won 134 seats in the 250-ward MCD. The BJP won 104 and the Congress came a distant third with just nine seats. Others got it three.
The AAP needed 126 wards to win the polls and have its mayor elected. But here are some twists. The Delhi Lieutenant Governor (L-G), who reports to the Centre, the BJP-led government in the current case, is authorised to nominate 12 councillors to the MCD. Assuming these 12 councillors are from the BJP, the margin in the tightly contested election could narrow further.
There’s not enough clarity as of now if these 12 councillors will play a role in electing the mayor. But what is clear is this: the MCD is no legislature like a state assembly or Parliament. So, the anti-defection law doesn’t apply here. No party can issue a whip to its councillors to vote a certain way.
No crossing-voting group has to have two-thirds majority to escape disqualification. So even when the AAP has won the polls, some of its councillors or those from the Congress can support a BJP mayoral candidate. Such councillors don’t have to leave their parties or form their own.
Confirming this, constitution expert SK Sharma told IndiaToday.in, “The game is wide open. Councillors can cross-vote and won’t face action for the same.”
The AAP can take comfort from the fact that its MLAs, in a completely different scenario, have been seen resisting “poaching” attempts by other parties.