The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) managed to secure the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) mayor seat on Thursday with Dev Nagar councillor Mahesh Khichi winning by just three votes but the contest exposed the rift within the party as eight of its votes shifted to the BJP. With the Delhi Assembly elections scheduled to be held early next year, the razor-thin win has set the stage for the BJP to capitalise on the fissures within the AAP.
On Thursday, AAP, which will be battling a decade-long anti-incumbency in the Delhi Assembly elections, was caught in an intense battle to defend its turf and managed to scrape through with a nail-biting margin. A total of 265 votes were cast, with AAP receiving 133 and BJP 130; two votes were declared invalid. Currently, AAP has 128 MCD councillors, with two councillors who recently left Congress and joined the party boosting its numbers from 126. It also enjoys the support of an Independent councillor. The BJP has 114 councillors and the Congress just seven.
Apart from the MCD councillors, the mayoral election process also includes votes from seven BJP Lok Sabha MPs, three AAP Rajya Sabha MPs, and 14 MLAs nominated by the Delhi Assembly Speaker (13 from AAP and one from BJP). Rajya Sabha MP Swati Maliwal did not turn up.
The BJP was projected to get 122 votes and the AAP 143. However, due to cross-voting, AAP received at least 10 fewer votes than expected.
“We were already in a minority, so we do not consider this a battle we lost. Winning this election was not our target; our only target was a Dalit mayor. When the councillors are fed up, their mood changes towards the party, leading to this kind of cross-voting,” Raja Iqbal Singh, BJP’s Leader of Opposition, said.
Asked about the cross-voting after he bagged the mayor’s seat, Khichi said, “A victory is a victory; it does not matter if it is by a single vote or three votes. Our councillors are not swaying away from the party. Small disagreements exist in each party. Our priority now is to fix the issues being faced in Delhi before the elections and continue the good work once the elections conclude.”
The ward committee elections in September also saw significant cross-voting with some AAP councillors casting their votes in BJP’s favour. In the South Zone, where AAP had 16 councillors against BJP’s six, a draw of lots was held to determine the chairman after five AAP councillors voted for the BJP, leading to an 11-11 tie.
Since former Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal’s arrest in the excise policy case, at least 10 councillors have defected from his party — two before the Lok Sabha polls, five in August, and three more in September. However, two councillors returned to the party soon after. Others did not formally leave but signalled their exit by filing nominations for the ward committee elections as BJP candidates.
Kejriwal acknowledged the discontent within his ranks
In his first address to party councillors after being released from jail, Kejriwal acknowledged the discontent within his ranks while making a rallying cry for unity ahead of the Assembly elections. “Everyone is unhappy,” he had said. “Those who did not get a ticket are unhappy. Those who got a ticket are unhappy. After getting the ticket, they fought elections; those who lost are unhappy, and those who won are also unhappy. Now, the one who won is thinking he should get the MLA ticket. It is not like the MLA is happy; he is also unhappy, thinking he should become a minister. Even the minister is unhappy,” Kejriwal had remarked, to which the gathered councillors had responded with laughter.
Of the three-vote margin that AAP received, two votes swung in their favour after Congress councillors Shagufta Chaudhary shifted to support AAP a few days before the elections and Sabila Begum on the day of the election itself. Both Chaudhary and Begum left Congress along with their spouses, expecting Assembly tickets from AAP.
Chaudhary earlier confirmed that either her husband Zubair Chaudhary or her father-in-law, five-time MLA Chaudhary Mateen Ahmed, would be the new AAP candidate for the Seelampur seat. AAP sources said that many of their councillors are also expecting tickets to contest the upcoming Assembly elections from their strongholds.