MCD polls on December 4, likely to be most bitterly fought | India News

NEW DELHI: The stage is set for probably the most high-decibel civic poll campaign to be carried out in the Capital, with the state election commission announcing the poll schedule for the reunified Municipal Corporation of Delhi on Friday. Delayed by more than seven months due to the merger of the three erstwhile corporations and a subsequent delimitation exercise, the elections — a three-cornered contest between BJP, AAP and Congress — will be held barely a month from now, on December 4, while the votes will be counted on December 7, state election commissioner Vijay Kumar Dev announced at a press conference.

The acrimony between BJP and AAP and the daily squabbles and skirmishes makes it a high-stakes election for both parties. BJP has run the corporation for 15 years since 2007 and AAP has won the last two assembly polls in the capital with record margins. The saffron party has accused AAP of starving the corporation of funds while AAP has held the BJP-run corporations guilty of corruption and mismanagement. For Congress, it’s a fight to stay relevant in Delhi’s politics.
The delimitation exercise was necessitated after Parliament passed the Delhi Municipal (Amendment) Act, 2022, merging the south, north and east corporations, followed by the ministry of home affairs reducing the number of wards from 272 to 250. “We completed the delimitation exercise in record time to ensure the elections take place at the earliest,” said Dev.
According to data shared by the state election commission, Delhi has a total of 1,46,73,847 voters — 79,86,705 males, 66,86,081 females and 1,061 transgender persons — who will elect councillors for 250 municipal wards spread across 68 assembly seats in the capital. New Delhi and Delhi Cantonment Assembly areas fall outside the jurisdiction of MCD and have their separate local bodies.
BJP, which faces strong anti-incumbency, will try to repeat its performance of the 2017 polls — were held in 272 wards spread across three municipal corporations — when it won a record number of 181 seats, the highest in a civic election in Delhi.