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Relief on sealing, says new Mayor

Staff Reporter

Arti Mehra and S.S. Bajwa elected Mayor and Deputy Mayor respectively

NEW DELHI: Bharatiya Janata Party Councillor Arti Mehra was on Monday elected unopposed to the post of Mayor at the first meeting of the newly constituted Municipal Corporation of Delhi in Town Hall here. Sawinder Jeet Singh Bajwa, also of the BJP, had no opposition in his election as Deputy Mayor.

Following her election, Ms. Mehra said the civic body would gear up to fight corruption, better sanitation and work towards improving its revenue collections.

Addressing the House, she said an amnesty scheme would be brought in to provide relief to the people who have been affected by the sealing process. She further stated that in the next few months the MCD would work hard to make a visible difference in terms of sanitation in the Capital.

Stressing the need to improve the state of affairs in MCD schools, she said that enough care would be taken to ensure that children got clean and healthy food in their mid-day meal. The Health Department would be strengthened with special focus on diseases like dengue.

Ms. Mehra pointed out that there were only 8.5 lakh people who pay property tax in the Capital whereas estimates showed that the number of property tax payees should be around 25 lakh. She said there was a need to strengthen the property tax system.

To improve the earnings of the MCD, the new Mayor said there was a need to tap the advertising market.

Members take oath

Earlier, the newly elected members were administered the oath of office. Among them were the husband-wife duo of Meghraj Chandela (Vishnu Garden) and Meenakshi Chandela (Khayala) -- both from Jharkhand Mukti Morcha; the brother-sister duo of Preeti (Vivek Vihar) and Jitender Singh Shunty (Jhilmil); and Geeta (Gokulpur), a student of Delhi University's Zakir Husain College, who is the youngest member of the House.

The House elected four members of the Education Committee. They are P. R. Sahni, Azad Singh, Leela Sharma (all from the BJP) and Mukesh Goel (Congress).

Prior to the election, the Congress members objected to the manner in which the exercise was being held. They claimed that eminent persons from the field of education should have been first nominated to the Committee before filling up the vacant positions through elections. However, Ms. Mehra said there was nothing wrong with the election process and it was being held as per rules.

Eight nominations had been filed for elections to the six seats of the 12-member Standing Committee. However, Congress Councillor Ajit Chaudhary withdrew his nomination on Monday. While five members -- Vijender Gupta, Sarita Chaudhary, Yogender Chandolia, Rajani Abbi (all from BJP) and Jai Kishan Sharma (Congress) -- were elected on the basis of first preference voting, Anita Babbar (Congress) was declared elected after the counting of second preference votes.

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