LIVE: Delhi MCD House Proceedings to Resume Today; AAP, BJP Lock Horns Over Standing Committee Polls

With the MCD House adjourned without conducting election for the six-member Standing Committee, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Thursday accused the BJP of resorting to “hooliganism” as it was not able to accept its defeat in the mayoral poll. Several members of both parties exchanged blows and hurled plastic bottles at each other in the chamber of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) House on Wednesday night. The chaos continued on Thursday, forcing Mayor Shelly Oberoi to adjourn it till 10 am on Friday.

A 57-year-old Indian Administrative Officer (IAS) officer posted as secretary in the Maharashtra Public Works Department (PWD) died following a suspected heart attack, just after finishing his dinner at a hotel in south Mumbai, police said on Thursday. The senior bureaucrat, Prashant Dattatray Navghare, started feeling uneasy soon after finishing his meal and suddenly collapsed at the hotel on Wednesday evening.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Thursday questioned Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s personal assistant Bibhav Kumar as part of its ongoing investigation into a money laundering case linked to alleged irregularities in the now-scrapped Delhi excise policy, officials said. Kumar deposed before the federal probe agency here and the investigators are recording his statement under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), the officials said.

Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia on Thursday wrote another letter to Lieutenant Governor V K Saxena asking him to approve the proposal to send Delhi government school teachers to Finland for a training programme. Sisodia, who holds the education portfolio, cited government rules and said the LG “cannot put such proposals on hold” for more than 15 days.

The overnight impasse in the election of standing committee members of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi continued Thursday morning as the House was finally adjourned till Friday. However, proceedings will resume at 10 am and standing committee elections are expected to take place.

Videos of commotion in the House with AAP councilors getting physically engaged in the ruckus went viral on social media. A video shared by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) showed BJP councilor Rekha Gupta and other councilors on the dias throwing away things kept there. The BJP leaders, on the other hand, shared a video claiming party councilor Pramod Gupta was slapped by AAP councilor Devender Kumar.