AAP councillors participated in the election process despite mayor Shelly Oberoi‘s refusal to nominate presiding officers a day earlier. The elections were conducted by the deputy commissioners of the zones.
Formation of the zonal or ward committees and election of chairman and deputy chairman – besides one councillor for the standing committee – in each of the 12 zones had been pending for 20 months since the civic polls in December 2022. These zonal committees will facilitate decentralisation of discussions on area-specific issues and expedite solutions, besides sanctioning and implementing projects.
Before the ward committee elections were held on Wednesday, mayor Shelly Oberoi wrote to MCD commissioner Ashwani Kumar that the deputy commissioners were not the presiding officers and couldn’t preside over or conduct any poll.
Later in the day, the mayor herself took part in the ward committee election in Karol Bagh. According to sources, AAP is likely to pursue the matter in court.
In the letter, marked to all zonal deputy commissioners of Municipal Corporation of Delhi, Oberoi asked them not to preside over the zonal ward committee election process while calling the election notices issued by the municipal secretary “null and void”.
“Despite the directions to the commissioner and the municipal secretary to extend the timeline of elections for the chairman, deputy chairman and one member of Standing Committee from the ward committee of each zone of MCD, the commissioner had approached the office of lieutenant governor requesting directions under Section 487 of DMC Act 1957, and an order was issued thereafter. It is noted that the order issued was interpreted incorrectly and, therefore, null and void ab initio,” she wrote.
Section 487 of Delhi Municipal Act, she added, does not make provisions for “usurping the powers which can only be exercised by the duly elected mayor… that is, of appointing the presiding officers for the said elections”.
It doesn’t envisage that central govt or LG can take away the power granted to one municipal authority and give it to another, Oberoi claimed. “Furthermore, there was no show-cause issued as per the requirement in the proviso asking why such directions may not be issued, thereby making the order by the commissioner null and void,” she wrote.
The communication came a day after LG VK Saxena intervened in the zonal committee election process, directing the MCD commissioner to appoint the deputy commissioners to preside over the polls after the mayor’s refusal to appoint presiding officers.
At 9pm on Tuesday, Oberoi refused to appoint the presiding officers for the elections to the 12 ward committees on Wednesday, saying her conscience didn’t allow her to participate in an undemocratic election process and called for a restart.