The Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party came into maximum possible control of Delhi on Wednesday, winning 134 of the total 250 wards in the first unified Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) elections, dislodging the BJP. The saffron party bagged 104 seats, while the Congress won nine and three wards went to Independents.
Wednesday’s MCD election results drastically change the civic map of Delhi after 15 years of BJP rule to one where the same party reigns both in the MCD and the Delhi government. But how would the tally have looked for AAP and BJP had the MCD not been unified earlier this year? News18 did the math.
What If…
If the MCD were still three civic bodies instead of one, the latest seat count would have looked something like this:
Old East Delhi Municipal Corporation (61 wards)
AAP: 20
BJP: 35
INC: 5
IND: 1
Old North Delhi Municipal Corporation (94 wards)
AAP: 56
BJP: 36
INC: 1
IND: 1
Old South Delhi Municipal Corporation (95 wards)
AAP: 58
BJP: 33
INC: 3
IND: 1
The ward distribution above is as per the latest delimitation exercise. In the older corporations, the total number of wards was 272, which has now come down to 250. Previously, North Delhi had 104 wards, South Delhi had 104 and East Delhi had 64 wards. So in theory, if delimitation hadn’t happened, the BJP would have won one corporation and the AAP two.
The Unification
The unified Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) had formally come into existence on May 22, 10 years after it was trifurcated during Sheila Dikshit’s tenure. It was reunified this year by merging three civic bodies — North, South and East Municipal Corporations — through the Delhi Municipal Corporation (Amendment) Act, 2022.
A bill to unify the three civic bodies was approved by the Lok Sabha on March 30 and by the Rajya Sabha on April 5. The bill became an Act after then President Ram Nath Kovind gave his assent to it on April 18.
The Act reduced the number of wards in the national capital to 250 from the existing 272, which meant that the MCD had to undergo a delimitation exercise before the election.
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