AAP and BJP announce candidates for 12 MCD wards as Delhi gears up for by-elections on Nov 30; results to be declared Dec 3.

 New Delhi :  The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) announced their candidates for the impending by-elections to 12 wards of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), setting the stage for a high-stakes civic battle in the nation’s capital.

According to the State Election Commission (SEC), the polls will take place on November 30 and the results will be announced on December 3.

The two adversaries trying to gain control of the MCD before the next mayoral election have turned the by-elections, which are dispersed over wards including Mundka, Shalimar Bagh-B, Ashok Vihar, Chandni Chowk, Dwarka-B, Dakshinpuri, and Greater Kailash, into a political hot spot.

There are twelve wards, five of which are designated for women, one for Scheduled Castes, and six in the general category. The openings resulted from the election of three AAP and nine BJP council members as MPs or MLAs earlier this year.

BJP Seek “One-Sided Win”

Virendra Sachdeva, the head of the Delhi BJP, announced the party’s list of candidates, expressing his belief in a landslide win.

“We have chosen our candidates based on their ability to win and their merit. According to Sachdeva, the BJP would win the by-elections “with a one-sided result” since the public has witnessed the work done by the BJP’s triple-engine government at the federal, state, and local levels.

Jaypal Singh Thakar, Anita Jain, from Shalimar Bagh-B, Meena Aggarwal, from Ashok Vihar, Sushma Kumar Gupta, from Chandni Chowk, Sunil Sharma, from Chandni Mahal, Manisha Rajpawat Sehrawat, from Dwarka-B, Rekha Rani, from Dichaon Kalan, Dr. Chandrakanta Shivani, from Naraina, Roshni Raj, from Dakshinpuri, Subrajeet Gautam, from Sangam Vihar-A, Anjum Mandal, from Greater Kailash, and Sarla Chaudhary, from Vinod Nagar, are on the BJP list.

AAP Places a Bet on a Cadre.

Earlier in the day, the Aam Aadmi Party presented its slate first, prioritizing local ties and devotion over political prestige. The Delhi AAP’s political affairs committee, according to party president Saurabh Bharadwaj, has chosen to give grassroots workers precedence over “parachute candidates.”

“The committee has decided to reward grassroots workers who have consistently worked for Delhi’s people,” Bharadwaj explained. “Delhiites, troubled by pollution and filth, will teach BJP a lesson by ensuring AAP’s victory in every ward,” he continued.

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Anil Lakra (Mundka), Babita Ahlawat (Shalimar Bagh-B), Seema Vikas Goyal (Ashok Vihar), Harsh Sharma (Chandni Chowk), Muddasir Usman Qureshi (Chandni Mahal), Rajbala Sehrawat (Dwarka-B), Keshav Chauhan (Dichaon Kalan), Rajan Arora (Naraina), Ram Swaroop Kanojia (Dakshinpuri), Anuj Sharma (Sangam Vihar-A), Eeshna Gupta (Greater Kailash), and Geeta Rawat (Vinod Nagar) are among the members of the AAP’s list.

In the MCD house, AAP’s Leader of the Opposition, Ankush Narang, stated that the candidates “will meet people’s expectations with honesty and dedication,” vowing to further Delhi’s “development, cleanliness, and public service agenda.”

City’s Public Interests

In the civic environment of Delhi, the MCD by-elections are politically crucial. Cross-voting in the mayoral election earlier this year allowed the BJP to restore power after the AAP ended the party’s 15-year hegemony in the 2022 MCD elections.

Currently, the newly founded Indraprastha Vikas Party (IVP) has 16 seats, the Congress has 8, the BJP has 115, and the AAP has 99. The results of the November 30 election could affect the mood leading up to the next mayoral election as well as the MCD balance.

The Election Machine in Operation

Eleven poll observers, district election officers, and returning officers have been picked by the State poll Commission to supervise the procedure, including keeping an eye on spending.

A mobile app called “Nigam Chunav Delhi” has also been released by the commission to give voters real-time access to information about candidates, voting places, and election updates.

Ward after ward, Delhi’s civic battlefield is once again poised for a fierce battle, with the AAP relying on its grassroots army and the BJP on its track record of government.