Congress wins zonal elections, AAP says BJP helped

NEW DELHI: Not having enough numbers didn’t stop two Congress candidates from being elected to crucial posts in North Delhi Municipal Corporation’s Sadar Paharganj zone on Thursday.

Congress councillors Usha Sharma and Prerna Singh were elected as deputy chairman and standing committee member, respectively, with nine votes each. A third candidate of the party, Alley Mohammad, lost to an

AAP

corporator as, sources said, a consensus couldn’t be reached.

The zone has 13 wards and 17 members—eight belonging to AAP (including four aldermen), six to Congress and three to BJP. All three parties fielded candidates for three posts.

For the post of chairperson of zonal committee, Babita from AAP, Alley Mohammad Iqbal from Congress and Avtar Singh from BJP were in fray. Of 17 votes polled, eight went to Babita, six to Iqbal and three to Singh. Since nobody touched the winning mark of nine votes, another poll had to be conducted after removing the candidate with the least number of votes.

In the second poll, Babita again got eight votes and Iqbal six as BJP councillors abstained from voting. AAP alleged that BJP councillors abstained from voting as the Congress candidate was a Muslim.

In the elections to the post of deputy chairman and standing committee member, BJP’s Ravinder Kumar withdrew his nominations from both posts. For the first one, the contest was between Usha Sharma of Congress and Mohammad Sadiq of AAP. Congress had only six votes but Sharma got nine votes, thereby trumping Sadiq.

For the post of standing committee member, Congress’s Prerna Singh contested against AAP’s Rakesh Kumar, who is also the leader of the opposition in the House. Singh, too, got nine votes.

AAP claimed BJP members had voted for Congress as in both elections its own candidates received eight votes. “Congress’s candidate would have won the

election

for the seat of chairperson also, but he didn’t get BJP votes for being a Muslim. BJP is hand in glove with Congress in the corporation,” AAP’s Kumar said, adding that there was no cross-voting from AAP.

Kumar also claimed that the “union of BJP and Congress” would weaken the opposition in the corporation and important issues would be delayed or not taken up altogether. “It will also lead to corruption,” he said.

Congress rubbished claims of an accord with BJP. “If we did, we would have won the election for the post of chairperson too,” said Mukesh Goel of Congress.

Goel said there was secret voting so it wasn’t possible to know who voted for whom. “May be AAP councillors also voted for us,” he said.

A BJP member, however, said the party didn’t want an AAP member in the standing committee.