Standing Committee 18 members election process completes as Satya Sharma elected final member
New Delhi: The two-and-a-half-year-long endeavour to form the pivotal standing committee of the
Municipal Corporation of Delhi
finally seems to be nearing a culmination with the election of the last member of the 18-member panel on Tuesday.
BJP's Satya Sharma won the election, managing 130 votes against the 95 logged by AAP's Hema.
At the House meeting on Tuesday, 227 councillors voted, though the ballots of two were deemed invalid. Eleven councillors were absent, including the eight of Congress. Of the 250 seats, 12 are vacant after some councillors were elected as MPs and MLAs in 2024.
The election of the chairman and deputy chairman of the standing committee will take place on June 12.
Sharma, who represents Gautampuri ward of north-east Delhi in MCD, is a three-term councillor. She was first elected to the municipal body in 2007, then in 2012 and again in 2022. She also served as mayor in the erstwhile East Delhi Municipal Corporation.
After the MCD election in Dec 2022, Sharma presided over earlier body polls, including those for mayor and deputy mayor. Appointed by the lieutenant governor as presiding officer, she took decisions such as allowing the nominated aldermen to vote in the mayoral election.
AAP candidate and winner of the Feb 23, 2023, mayoral poll Shelly Oberoi had challenged this ruling in the Supreme Court, which ultimately ruled the aldermen could not participate in the mayoral election.
The aldermen are members of the MCD nominated by LG.
On Tuesday, Sharma said that the constitution of the standing committee was important for the full-fledged operation of MCD. "Finally, all 18 members are elected, and hopefully, in the coming days, work on the finalisation of pending projects will be accelerated," she said.
Later in the day, a notice on election for the chairman and deputy chairman of the panel on the same day was issued by the municipal secretary.
The notice said, "Section 47(1) of Delhi Municipal Corporation Act provides that the standing committee shall at its first meeting in each year elect one of its members (who is a councillor) to be chairman and another member to be the deputy chairman. The first meeting for such an election has been fixed by the commissioner for June 12."
Sharma may fight for the post of panel chairman. Councillors desirous of contesting for the two posts have to file their nomination by June 6.
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