Municipal Polls: Delhi BJP Announces Names of Candidates For Mayor, Deputy-Mayor Posts

The BJP’s Delhi unit on Wednesday announced the names of the party's candidates for the June 24 elections to the posts of mayor and deputy mayor in the city’s three municipal corporations.

Election to the posts of chairman and vice chairman of standing committees in the civic bodies will also be held on the same day.

Last time, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had swept the mayoral polls to the three municipal corporations -- North Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC), South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) and East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC).

Delhi BJP president Adesh Gupta announced in a tweet that Jai Prakash, Nirmal Jain and Anamika Mithlesh are the candidates for the mayoral posts of the north, the east and the south corporations respectively.

Prakash is currently the chairman of the standing committee of the NDMC. Wednesday was the last date to file nominations for the elections.

On June 24, polls for the new South Delhi mayor will take place in the morning, for the North Delhi mayor in the afternoon and then for the East Delhi mayor.

All safety protocols shall be followed on June 24, a senior civic official had earlier said.

The outgoing mayors are Avtar Singh (NDMC), Sunita Kangra (SDMC) and Anju Kamalkant (EDMC).

The BJP's candidates are likely set to sail through easily in the elections, as the party has majority in the House of all the three civic bodies.

The names of candidates for the posts of deputy mayor are Ritu Goyal (NDMC), Hariprakash Bahadur (EDMC) and Subhash Bhadana (SDMC).

For Leader of the House the names announced are Yogesh Verma (NDMC), Pravesh Sharma (EDMC) and Narender Chawla (SDMC), according to the list tweeted by Adesh Gupta, an ex-mayor of North Delhi.

Meanwhile, Leader of the House in the BJP-ruled NDMC ,Tilak Raj Kataria, on Wednesday resigned from his post and the saffron party.

"I have resigned as a politician, North MCD Councillor and from all BJP posts. I will continue to live as a normal dignified citizen. #TilakRajKatariaTeam #ProudToBeIndian," he tweeted.

"Sometimes sincerity and loyalty is a punishment," he tweeted, hinting at his seeming displeasure over the names announced 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 open category, third for reserved category, and the remaining two also being in open category.

The polls got delayed this year due to the coronavirus pandemic.