Preeti Aggarwal elected north Delhi mayor

New Delhi: BJP councillor Preeti Aggarwal was today elected unopposed as the mayor of north Delhi as the new team of the area's civic body also took charge.
Besides, Vijay Kumar Bhagat was also chosen unopposed as the deputy mayor as no other party had filed nominations for the two posts.

While Aggarwal represents Rohini-F ward (No 57-N), Bhagat had won from ward no 20-N in the high-stakes MCD polls held on April 23, in which the BJP had fielded all fresh faces to counter "anti-incumbency".

After the polls, the saffron party's strength in the 104 -member New Delhi Municipal Corporation House is 64, while AAP has 21 and Congress 15 councillors. The BSP has one member, while two had won the election independent candidates.

The post of mayor sees five single-year terms on a rotation basis, with the first year being reserved for women, the second for open category, third for reserved category, and the remaining two also being in the open category.

In the polls, Aggarwal had defeated AAP's Abhinav Mishra in the elections by a margin of 5,413 votes. She had bagged 11,723 votes, while Mishra finished second with 6,310.

Incidentally, last year too, Sanjiv Nayyar was unanimously elected the mayor on April 28.

The erstwhile unified Municipal Corporation of Delhi was trifurcated in 2012 into the NDMC, the SDMC and the EDMC. The first MCD polls after the trifurcation was held the same year.

The BJP had bagged 181 of the 270 wards in the civic polls. Delhi has a total of 272 wards -- NDMC (104 wards), SDMC (104) and EDMC (64).

While election to Maujpur ward in east Delhi was held on May 14, Sarai Pipal in north Delhi will go to polls on May 21. Elections in these two wards were postponed due to death of candidates.