The Aam Aadmi Party on Wednesday won the Delhi Deputy Mayor's post after bagging the mayor's seat in the Municipal Corporation. AAP candidate Aaley Mohammad Iqbal won the deputy mayor's post by raking in 147 votes against BJP's Kamal Bagdi's haul of 116 votes.
Earlier in the day, AAP's Shelly Oberoi won against BJP councillor Rekha Gupta by a margin of 34 votes in the election to the top post in the much-awaited first meeting of the newly elected Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD).
Aged 29, Aaley Mohammad Iqbal is a councillor from the Chandni Mahal ward, a seat which he won with the highest margin in the 2022 MCD polls. He is the son of Shoaib Iqbal, MLA from Delhi's Matia Mahal constituency. Iqbal's candidature for the deputy mayor's post was widely seen as a move to appease the Muslims in Delhi since the community was distancing itself from the AAP after the Delhi riots of 2020 over the Citizenship Amendment Act.
AAP convener and Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal tweeted: "Many congratulations to @AaleyIqbal ji on being elected the Deputy Mayor of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi and the people of Delhi. People have won." Deputy CM Manish Sisodia also congratulated Iqbal, saying that the BJP, the Centre, and even the LG tried to stop him but the people eventually won.
The elections for the top two posts in the MCD were held on Wednesday after the Supreme Court recently ordered that the 10 aldermen appointed by the Lt Governor VK Saxena cannot vote in the election. Aldermen are the MCD members who were nominated to the civic body by Lieutenant Governor VK Saxena.
Three previous attempts to elect a mayor and a deputy mayor for Delhi yielded no result as the AAP and the BJP fought in the MCD House meetings over the issue of appointment of a pro tem mayor and aldermen.
The AAP on December 4 last year ended the BJP's 15-year rule in the MCD by bagging 134 wards and winning the civic elections. The BJP managed to rake in just 104 wards to finish second. The Congress's abysmal performance in the polls was reflected in its tally of nine seats in the 250-member municipal House.