New mayor for south Delhi civic agency

New Delhi, May 2 (IANS) After its nominees won the mayoral elections unopposed in the east and north municipal corporations in the national capital, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Wednesday scored a triple bagging the vaunted post in south Delhi also.

Savita Gupta, a three-time councillor, took charge as the first Mayor of south Delhi after she was elected Wednesday defeating Phool Kali from the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) 66-46. Bahujan Samaj Party's (BSP) Bir Singh was elected unopposed as deputy mayor.

The BJP faced an acid test in the south Delhi municipal corporation mayoral election as none of the parties had a majority of their own in the 104-member house. BJP has 44 members while the Congress has 29. Among other parties, NCP has 6 councillors, BSP 5, Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) 3, and Samajwadi Party (SP), Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) and Janta Dal (United) have a member each. Besides, there are 14 independents.

"The BJP worked till the last to ensure that its ally INLD's candidates withdrew from the race for the two top posts. They tried to enlist the support of BSP by allowing its candidate to win the deputy mayorship unanimously," a Congress councillor, pleading anonymity said.

INLD's Mayoral candidate Seema Pandit and Deputy Mayoral candidate Krishan Pehelwan withdrew from the race.

Out of 114 people who have a vote in the house, two Congress MPs - Sandeep Dikshit and Ramesh Kumar - did not vote. Union Sports Minister Ajay Maken was among the MPs who cast their votes.

Election to the six-member standing committee was also held, in which four BJP and two Congress councillors were elected unopposed.

The BJP councillors elected to the standing committee were Rajesh Gehlot, Anil Sharma, M. Nagarajan and Simmi Jain. From Congress, Tilotma Choudhary was elected unopposed to the panel. Congress has nominated Farhad Suri as the Leader of Opposition.

All the newly-elected councillors were also sworn in at the first house meeting of the corporation Wednesday.