‘Anti-Dalit’: House adjourned as AAP, BJP raise slogans against each other

New Delhi: The AAP and BJP on Friday traded allegations over the postponement of Mayoral polls, accusing each other of being anti-Dalit, following an uproar in the MCD House meeting that was adjourned amid heavy sloganeering.

Polls to elect the Mayor and Deputy Mayor were postponed late Thursday night due to the non-appointment of the presiding officer for the elections. The third term of the Mayoral polls is reserved for a Dalit candidate.

The MCD House session witnessed an uproar over the postponement of the

Mayoral elections that were slated to be held on Friday, with both AAP and BJP councillors raising slogans against each other before the proceedings of the House began.

BJP councillors surrounded the Mayor’s seat and raised slogans demanding the presence of Mayor Shelly Oberoi who was running late for the meeting.

AAP councillors initially raised slogans against the BJP near the Ambedkar statue at the corporation headquarters. Later, they reached the House and continued raising slogans against the opposition party calling them “Dalit Virodhi BJP”. The AAP has called the BJP “anti-Dalit”, saying it was trying to ensure that a candidate from the reserved category does not become the Mayor of Delhi.

The councillors of the two parties raised slogans against each other for about an hour.

After Mayor Oberoi reached the House, she accused Delhi Lieutenant Governor V K Saxena of “murdering the Constitution” and using the judicial custody of Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal as an “excuse” to stall the Mayoral polls.

The mayor then adjourned the meeting of the MCD House.

Addressing a press conference after the House was adjourned, Oberoi accused the BJP of hatching a “conspiracy” to stop the elections from taking place. “Today the Mayoral elections were supposed to take place. The Election Commission had also given its permission on April 24. But yesterday, the file for appointing the presiding officer was sent to the Lt Governor bypassing the elected government. L-G sahab’s response to the file that he does not have the power to appoint the presiding officer in the absence of inputs from Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal is shallow politics,” Oberoi said.

She said the BJP has hatched a conspiracy to postpone the elections. “If this is not the murder of democracy, then what is it? Lok Sabha elections (in Delhi) will be held soon. They don’t want AAP’s candidate to become the mayor before it.

“AAP had the mandate as well as the numbers. Our candidates would have won the (Mayoral) elections,” the Mayor said.

Meanwhile, BJP councillors, after the adjournment of the session, were seen dancing to the BJP’s campaign song inside the House. The video was shared by several AAP leaders, including the Mayor and Delhi

ministers Atishi and Saurabh Bharadwaj. They alleged that the BJP was celebrating since AAP’s Dalit candidate could not be elected as Mayor.

“Look at the happiness of BJP councillors that a Dalit did not become the Mayor,” Atishi captioned her video post on X.

Responding to the allegation, Leader of Opposition Raja Iqbal said it was the AAP which was “anti-Dalit”, saying it was their “procedural fault” to not take required approvals well in time to hold the elections.

“The Aam Aadmi Party is ‘Dalit virodhi’. They didn’t want the elections to take place. If that was not the case, they would have taken all the permissions required for holding the elections well in advance. “This is their procedural fault, they had no intention of holding the elections and now they are staging a drama and shedding crocodile tears,” Iqbal said. He also slammed the Mayor for being late for the House meeting. “All councillors of the MCD, both from the BJP and AAP, come from far away (to attend the House meeting). Their time is precious for running the operations of the corporation,” he said.