Delhi's new mayor to be elected on January 6

New Delhi: On January 6, 2023, Delhi will elect a new mayor and deputy mayor. Delhi LG Vinai Kumar Saxena approved on December 15, 2022, the schedule of the first meeting of the newly elected assembly during the first week of January.

“Delhi L-G, V K Saxena, in the exercise of powers vested in him vide Section 73 of the Delhi Municipal Corporation Act, 1957, has approved the proposal to convene the first meeting of the MCD on Friday, January 6, 2023,” officials from the L-G’s secretariat said.

The first session will be held almost a month after the Aam Aadmi Party won the municipal polls on December 7, 2022, receiving a majority of the votes in 134 out of 250 wards. BJP won 104 seats, and Congress won nine of them, and the remaining seats went to independent candidates.

According to the rules, a female candidate will serve as mayor during the first year. In municipal elections, 50% of the seats are reserved for women. 71 of the 134 AAP councillors who were elected are female.

On December 12, 2022, the commissioner of MCD submitted a request to the urban development department for authorisation to call the civic body's inaugural meeting.

“Thereafter, the file approved by Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, who is also minister of urban development and Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, was received in Raj Niwas on December 14, and the LG accorded his approval on the same day itself,” the officials said.

The Delhi Municipal Corporation Act states that "the corporation shall elect one of its members to the chairperson, to be known as the mayor, and another member to be the deputy mayor of the corporation at its first meeting in each year." The Act further specifies that the LG shall nominate a councillor who is not a contender for the election of the mayor to serve as the meeting's presiding officer.

In addition to the members who are elected, the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha MPs from Delhi, as well as one-fifth of the Delhi Assembly's (14) members (14) who are nominated annually by the Speaker in a rotating fashion, and ten individuals who are nominated by the Administrator (Aldermen without voting rights).