Shelly Oberoi is AAP's candidate for Delhi mayor

NEW DELHI: The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Friday named Shelly Oberoi and Aaley Mohammad Iqbal as its candidates for the posts of mayor and deputy mayor, respectively.
Oberoi is the councillor from East Patel Nagar while Aaley Iqbal is the Chandni Mahal councillor and the son of AAP MLA Shoaib Iqbal.
At a meeting of its political affairs committee (PAC), held at chief minister Arvind Kejriwal's residence, the party also nominated four people for standing committee members - Sarika Chaudhary, Mohini Jeenwal, Aamil Malik and Raminder Kaur, who are the councillors from Daryaganj, Sunder Nagri, Sriram Colony and Fateh Nagar, respectively.
The election for all six posts will be held on January 6.
BJP failed to keep Delhi clean: AAP's mayor pick
AAP's candidate for the mayor's post Shelly Oberoi on Friday hit out at BJP, saying it had failed to keep the city clean.
"In the past 15 years, BJP has turned Delhi into the 'garbage capital' of the country. We will work together to ensure that the city becomes clean again. Over the next few months, we will ensure we turn Delhi into the city it should have been a long time ago," Oberoi said after her nomination.
Listing her priorities, she said, "All the 10 guarantees given by the CM during the elections will be fulfilled. We will soon prepare a cleanliness blueprint and start clearing the mountains of garbage. Our councillors had started working in the wards even before taking their oath."
Oberoi, who completed her PhD from IGNOU's School of Management Studies, has been an assistant professor in several reputed universities. She joined AAP in 2013 and became the Delhi unit vice-president of the women's wing two years ago. She contested the MCD election for the first time this year and defeated the nearest BJP rival by 269 votes.
Mohini Jeenwal, who has been nominated for the post of standing committee member, said: "We will live up to the party's expectations and fulfil the promises made to the public by the CM."
The mayor and the deputy mayor will be elected only for a three-month period, following which fresh elections for their posts will take place in April.
AAP's nomination of two Muslims in the list of six candidates comes after its loss in seven Muslim-dominated wards in the recently concluded MCD polls. The party's names for the four standing committee members include a Sikh, an SC and a Muslim, indicating it has tried to balance the caste equation.
Meanwhile, Delhi BJP spokesperson Praveen Shankar Kapoor said the names announced for MCD's top leadership would come as a surprise for Delhiites. "AAP has totally neglected major segments of the city's population, i.e., Poorvanchalis and Vaishya Samaj," he said.