Ahead of the upcoming Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) Mayor polls, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Saturday threw an open challenge to the BJP and dared the saffron party to contest the election directly. The AAP accused the BJP of ‘fielding’ an independent candidate for the MCD mayoral election.

Election to pick Delhi’s next Mayor and Deputy Mayor is scheduled to be held on January 6 next year.

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Addressing a press conference, AAP leader Raghav Chadha said:  “The BJP must fight the mayoral election themselves. What is the point of hiding behind an independent candidate like a coward?”

“The BJP had announced that it will not contest the mayoral election, but is now fielding an independent candidate, who will be supported by all BJP councillors. It does not suit BJP to contest elections from the backdoor…,” the AAP leader said while addressing the media.

Rajya Sabha MP Chadha said that the BJP should come forward and contest the election and the people of Delhi will decide who will be the mayor of MCD.

The public threw BJP out of Delhi’s political rings in the MCD elections, it neither has any significance in the Delhi assembly nor in the municipal corporation, said he.

“Joblessness is at its peak in Delhi BJP. Their leaders are now looking for jobs on naukri.com,” he said.

“But now we are getting to hear from the opposition camp that the BJP has decided to support an Independent candidate for the post of Mayor. All the BJP candidates are going to support this Independent candidate for the election of the Mayor and basically try and challenge the Aam Aadmi Party candidate. I welcome this decision of the BJP, but at the same time I also want to give them a little bit of advice.”

He said:  “Everyone and every party has the right to fight an election. Now, it is their decision whether they want to come out onto the battlefield and directly face the challenger and fight, or whether they want to enter the battlefield through the backdoor using an Independent candidate”.

“But I would like to ask them a question? Why do they fear AAP so much? If they really want to fight the election to the post of the Mayor, then come forward and do it. Why try and fight the election through a backdoor candidate,” asked Chadha.

The AAP, on Friday, announced the name of Dr Shelly Oberoi, a Councillor from ward number 86 of Patel Nagar constituency, as the party’s candidate for the post of Mayor in the MCD. Aale Mohammad Iqbal will be the AAP’s candidate for the post of Deputy Mayor in the civic body.

The names of the party candidates for the said posts, which were finalised during a meeting of the PAC held at the residence of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, were announced at a press conference by Pankaj Gupta, national secretary of AAP.

The AAP PAC, which met here to decide the candidates for MCD’s leadership positions, besides the candidature for Mayor and Deputy Mayor, cleared the names of four candidates for the membership of the Standing Committee of the MCD.

The Mayoral candidate is a former Delhi University professor and a first-time councillor who won the Delhi civic body poll from the BJP stronghold. Aale Mohammad Iqbal is the son of MLA and AAP leader Shoaib Iqbal from Matia Mahal constituency. He won by the biggest margin of over 17,000 votes.

The four candidates selected by AAP for the election of the Standing Committee members are: Mohammad Aamil Malik from Sri Ram Colony, Raminder Kaur from Fateh Nagar, Mohini Jeenwal from Sunder Nagri, and Sarika Chaudhary from Daryaganj.

At the first MCD meeting to be held on January 6, the 250 municipal councillors will take oath and elect the Mayor and Deputy Mayor besides six members of the Standing Committee. The post of the Mayor is reserved for a female councillor in the first year of the MCD’s five-year tenure.

However, party’s national secretary Pankaj Gupta said that Shelly Oberoi will remain on the post for three months only. After the Mayor is elected on January 6, she will remain in office till April. The election of Mayor will be held again in April.

The electoral college for the election of Mayor includes 250 elected councillors, seven members of the Lok Sabha, three members of the Rajya Sabha and one fifth of the members of the Delhi Assembly (13 MLAs) nominated by the Speaker by rotation every year.

On December 7, the AAP stormed to power in the MCD, ending the 15-year long rule of the BJP by winning 134 of 250 wards while the BJP bagged 104 seats. The Congress finished a poor third with nine seats while Independents got three wards.