AAP ready with MCD poll plan, cleaning Delhi next focus area
NEW DELHI: Barely a day after sweeping the Delhi assembly elections, an upbeat Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is preparing the groundwork to take control of the city’s three municipal corporations, polls for which will be held in 2022, according to senior leaders who said cleanliness and sanitation would be among the party’s top priorities during its third term in the state secretariat.
To achieve this, the AAP government, in its third term, plans to shift its stance from being at loggerheads with the civic agencies — which Kejriwal has in the past described as a “den of corruption” — to proactively cooperating with them by devising issue-based schemes.
The AAP, for which the 2022 MCD elections will be a second attempt to take control of the agencies, plans to launch “model projects” across the city with the focus on infrastructure maintenance and sanitation.
NEWDELHI: The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) had a good success rate in the Delhi Assembly election not just with its sitting MLAS but all the three municipal councillors it fielded in the polls.
Abdul Rehman, who was AAP’S first Leader of Opposition (LOP) in the East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC) in 2017-18, won from Seelampur with a staggering 72,694 votes (vote share of 56.05%). This was against his rival Kaushal Kumar Mishra of BJP who got 35,774 votes (27.58%). Rehman was municipal councillor from the Chauhan Bangar ward, which is also in Seelampur.
Kuldeep Kumar, who became AAP’S second LOP in EDMC in 2018-19, won from Kondli with 68,348 votes (vote share of 53.11%) against his closest competitor Raj Kumar of the BJP who bagged 50,441 votes (39.2% vote share). He was councillor from Kalyanpuri.
Rohit Kumar Mehrolia, who was AAP’S third and current LOP in EDMC, emerged victorious from Trilokpuri with 69,947 votes (share of 52.36%) as against BJP’S Kiran Vaidya who got 57,461 votes (43.01%). Rohit was councilor from Trilokpuri 2E ward. Vaidya is also a sitting municipal councillor of the BJP and a former EDMC deputy mayor.
All the three victorious municipal councillors from AAP credited their win to chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and the party’s work in the area in the past five years. “Our party built roads, installed CCTVS and removed dark spots, which was greatly appreciated by women, repaired sewers and did great work in education,” said Abdul Rehman.
“Besides, we also did as much as we could as municipal councillors. I got three new MCD school buildings built in Trilokpuri. I realise the significance of quality education as I was myself a music teacher in the St. Francis School in Indirapuram, Ghaziabad,” said Rohit Mehrolia.
Kuldeep Kumar said, “The Muslim voters in east Delhi also saw through BJP’S divisive politics and did not vote for them. As a result, we won.”
The municipal heavyweights who the BJP fielded in the assembly elections but all lost blamed “polarisation and AAP’S freebies” for their defeat. Jai Prakash, north MCD’S current standing committee chairperson, who was fielded by BJP from Sadar Bazar but lost to AAP’S Som Dutt, said, “The Muslim voters here did not vote for me. We (the north municipality) did works here like Rani Jhansi Flyover and the Kishanganj Road Underbridge (RUB). The second one is still under construction.”
Shikha Rai, the current Leader of House in south DMC, who fought as BJP candidate from Greater Kailash against AAP MLA Saurabh Bharadwaj, said, “In my constituency, people were bowled over by AAP’S free 200 units electricity and free water. Even in my building, so many people got zero power bills.”
Two heavyweights of the municipal politics fielded by the Congress — Abhishek Dutt from Kasturba Nagar and Mukesh Goel from Adarsh Nagar — also lost to AAP candidates. Dutt said, “This election was not based on local issues at all. This was like presidential elections, a referendum on Modi’s politics versus Kejriwal’s.”
Goel said, “Yet, some people voted for me despite the bad shape of Congress party.”