The face-off between Delhi's ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) over the mayor elections to the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) continued on Monday as both political parties launched simultaneous protests.
The members of AAP staged a protest outside the BJP headquarters, and the latter protested outside the residence of Delhi state chief Arvind Kejriwal from the AAP.
AAP has accused BJP and Lieutenant Governor (LG) V.K. Saxena of demolishing the Constitution during the election after Saxena nominated ten aldermen.
In a video shared on AAP’s Twitter account, party spokesperson Adil Khan can be heard saying that “people of Delhi voted AAP to the majority in the MCD polls as they were fed up of BJP’s 15 years of corruption but BJP and LG [Saxena] want to capture the MCD by demolishing the Constitution. AAP is a party that emerged from a movement, we will give our lives but will not back down from protecting the Constitution.”
In another video, AAP lawmaker Saurabh Bhardwaj said: “BJP has a doctorate degree in dishonesty. Our candidate, Shelly Oberoi, has a doctorate degree in Commerce and BJP members are ready to take oath after doing PhD in dishonesty.”
Meanwhile, BJP accused AAP of insulting the Constitution. A BJP lawmaker in a tweet in Hindi said: “BJP’s protest against goons of AAP who insulted the Constitution in the civic centre.”
BJP’s working president in Delhi, Virendra Sachdeva, echoed this in a tweet in Hindi: “The hooliganism committed by AAP members in the Corporation House on January 6 was extremely shameful. We will not allow the hooliganism of Arvind Kejriwal to go on. Kejriwal government should stop exploiting political limits.”
The mayoral election was due to take place on January 6 but was called off until further notice after clashes between AAP and BJP councilors in the civic centre.
The brawl between the two parties was triggered after Sexona appointed ten nominated members or aldermen to the civic body.
The AAP accused the official of appointing the nominated members without consulting the local government, while BJP, in its turn, said that the LG was well within his rights to do so.
While AAP alleged that the nomination of the aldermen before the mayor election smelled of a conspiracy to get them to vote in BJP's favor, nominated members cannot vote in the election for mayor, as per the rules.