High-stakes Delhi mayoral election on Wednesday

NEW DELHI: The high-stakes Delhi mayoral election will take place on Wednesday, featuring a direct contest between the incumbent Shelly Oberoi from the AAP and Shikha Rai, a BJP leader. The AAP currently governs the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD).
According to officials, both the incumbent mayor Oberoi and the Bharatiya Janata Party's candidate Rai submitted their nominations for the upcoming Delhi mayoral election scheduled for April 26.
On February 22, Oberoi was elected as the Delhi mayor. She had defeated BJP's Rekha Gupta by a margin of 34 votes. Of the 266 votes cast, 116 went to Gupta, and 150 went to Oberoi.
The new mayoral election will be held at the Civic Centre, which is MCD's administrative center.
The position of mayor in the nation's capital is filled on a rotating basis for five one-year terms, with the first year reserved for women, the second for the open category, the third for the reserved category, and the final two again for the open category.
Following a fiscal year's end, the city elects a new mayor.
According to April 3 statements from official sources, Oberoi will remain in charge until a new mayor is elected.
As the Arvind Kejriwal-led party exuded confidence in the viability of its candidates, Oberoi and Aaley Mohammad Iqbal of the Aam Aadmi Party submitted their nominations earlier this month for the positions of mayor and deputy mayor for a potential second consecutive term.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has also entered the race, and Rai, a councilor from the Greater Kailash-1 ward, is the BJP's candidate for mayor.
Two for the position of mayor and one for deputy mayor were among the four nominations that the municipal secretary's office received. The deadline to submit nominations for the mayoral election was April 18.
Second-time councilor Rai has received the support of Delhi BJP President Virendra Sachdeva for the mayoral election. Soni Pandey, a Purvanchal Morcha activist and councilwoman from ward 249, is another candidate Sachdeva has put forth for the position of deputy mayor.
Former North Delhi mayor Jai Prakash said the presiding officer for the mayoral poll will be chosen by the lieutenant governor.
"Once the term of a mayor ends, the new mayor is to be elected at the first MCD meeting, according to the norm. Similar is the process to elect the deputy mayor. After the start of the financial year 2023-24, the meeting scheduled to be held on April 26 will be the first one in the new financial year," he said.
Delhi had got a mayor on February 22 in the fourth attempt since the earlier elections were stalled amid a ruckus over voting rights being given to nominated members.
According to the Delhi Municipal Corporation (DMC) Act, 1957, the mayor and the deputy mayor are to be elected in the very first session of the House after the civic polls.
The civic polls held on December 4 last year were the first after the three corporations were unified into the MCD and a fresh delimitation exercise was carried out, reducing the number of wards from 272 in 2012 to 250.
The AAP had emerged victorious in the high-stakes polls.
The unification of the North Delhi Municipal Corporation (104 wards), South Delhi Municipal Corporation (104 wards) and East Delhi Municipal Corporation (64 wards) happened last year, with a notification issued to that effect in May.
(With inputs from PTI)