Delhi Mayor Battle: Rekha Gupta named as BJP candidate against AAP

By Gargi Chaudhry | First Published Dec 27, 2022, 12:47 PM IST

Rekha Gupta, a three-time councillor from Shalimar Bagh, has been chosen by the BJP as its Delhi Mayor candidate. Kamal Bagri of Ram Nagar ward will fight for the deputy Mayor's post. The BJP has suggested that the mayor’s election is still an ‘open game’.

Rekha Gupta, a three-time councillor from Shalimar Bagh, was selected by the BJP as their candidate for mayor of Delhi after the party declared that it will run in the MCD mayoral elections. The expected date of the mayoral election is January 6. According to the MCD statute, the mayor will be a woman in the first year.

Gupta is competing against Shelly Oberoi, a mayoral candidate for the Aam Aadmi Party. Aaley Muhammad Iqbal has been chosen by the Arvind Kejriwal-led party to be its deputy mayor candidate. Kamal Bagri of Ram Nagar ward will fight for the deputy Mayor's post. The development comes ahead of the mayoral polls due on January 6.

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Gupta served as the former president and general secretary of the Delhi University Students Union, a member of the party's national leadership, and the party's general secretary for the state of Delhi.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was recently ousted from power in the Municipal Corporation of Delhi by the AAP, which just claimed a landslide win. The AAP won 134 of the 250 wards in the municipal corporation, while the saffron party made a determined effort to win 104 of them. Congress, the grand-old party, came in third with only nine members.

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Despite the AAP's resounding victory in the national capital, it may not automatically win the position of Delhi mayor. The BJP has claimed that there is still "open play" in the race for mayor. The party used Chandigarh as an illustration, where Kejriwal's party holds the majority but the mayor is a member of the BJP.

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