MCD elections 2024: The Aam Aadmi Party will field councillor Mahesh Khichi as its candidate for the Municipal Corporation of Delhi Mayor elections. The elections for the Mayor and Deputy Mayor of Delhi will be held on April 26. Delhi Minister and AAP leader Gopal Rai on Thursday said, "This year the Mayor is to be elected from the reserved category. This time the Mayor candidate from AAP will be Mahesh Khichi. He is a councillor from Dev Nagar Ward-84 of Karol Bagh."
Rai said Mahesh Khichi's candidature was based on his grassroots connect and his relations with people at the ground level. Khichi is a BCom graduate from Motilal Nehru College. AAP's Deputy Mayor candidate is second-time councillor of Aman Vihar Ward Ravindra Bhardwaj. He has been associated with the AAP since the beginning, said Rai.
Rai said: "Politics on the basis of development work started after the rise of Arvind Kejriwal and AAP in Delhi. People started moving away from the negative politics of the BJP. This is why after losing the assembly elections for the second time, the BJP started conspiring." He pointed out that Satyendar Jain was arrested before the MCD elections were to be held in March 2022. "This was BJP's conspiracy. But even after all the conspiracy, the BJP couldn't win. So Manish Sisodia was arrested... and now Kejriwal himself [is behind the bars]." He said people will reply to the "prison conspiracy" via voting.
AAP MLA Durgesh Pathak said that the people's expectations have been high for the last one year that the AAP has been in power in MCD. "The BJP was in power for 15 years... It takes time to clean up 15 years of mess. Now, salaries are received on time... new things are being developed. For the first time, the Budget of MCD is showing positive figures."