BJP nominee Raja Iqbal Singh was voted the new Mayor of Delhi on Friday, as the party returned to power at the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) after two years.
With the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) abstaining from the vote and Congress scraping a presence, the BJP won handsomely with 133 votes out of 142. Singh’s opponent, Congress’ Mandeep, got a mere eight votes, one of which was invalid. The strength of the MCD is currently 238 with 12 seats lying vacant following some councillors winning the Delhi Assembly or Lok Sabha elections. BJP now has 117 councillors, up from 104 in 2022, while AAP has lost seats to 113 from 134. Congress has a mere eight seats.
The mayoral electoral college comprises 238 councillors, 10 MPs (seven from Lok Sabha and three from Rajya Sabha), and 14 MLAs. BJP’s strength was further increased with the addition of 11 BJP MLAs in the electoral college.
AAP’s call for boycotting the mayoral election was in reaction to reported defections engineered by the BJP. During the last election, in November 2024, AAP candidate Mahesh Kumar Khinchi had won with a narrow margin of three votes.
After getting elected as the Mayor, Raja Iqbal Singh thanked the top BJP leaders, such as Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP national president JP Nadda, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, and Delhi BJP president Virendra Sachdeva. He promised that his decisions would be for the development of Delhi without partiality. He said, “I would like to thank Prime Minister Modi, BJP national president JP Nadda, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Delhi BJP chief Virendra Sachdeva, and other party leaders. I assure you that I will work in coordination with the ruling party, the opposition, and the Congress. Decisions will be made for the development of Delhi without any discrimination.”
Singh, who is at present Leader of the Opposition in the MCD, is the former Mayor of North MCD and the former Chairman of Ward Committee of Civil Line Zone. He has been a former councillor of Ward 13 Mukherjee Nagar as well.
