The Delhi BJP on Friday alleged the MCD mayor was elected without majority support of the councilors for the first time in the history of the municipal corporation.

This comes after AAP candidate Mahesh Kumar Khichi, a Dalit candidate, defeated his BJP rival with a narrow margin of three votes. Khichi got 133 votes while Lal secured 130 votes in the election held on Thursday.

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Leader of Opposition in the MCD Sardar Raja Iqbal Singh, in a press conference, alleged that the House currently has 249 councilors out of its total strength of 250. “The AAP nominee candidate received votes from only 118 councilors, which clearly indicates that the Aam Aadmi Party no longer holds a majority among elected councilors in the MCD,” he added.

Moreover, the administrative records state that the ruling AAP has 126 councilors in the House and additionally, all 10 MPs of Delhi and 14 nominated MLAs were eligible to vote, including 16 AAP members, he claimed.

Therefore ideally, the nominee should have got 142 votes, but he received only 133 votes out of which 15 were from MPs and MLAs and he got only 118 votes out of 126 councilors, which is a clear indication that the elected Mayor did not have the support from them, Singh alleged.

“We will soon bring to the attention of the LG that the AAP has lost the support of its councilors and no longer has the moral authority to remain in power in the corporation,” the BJP leader claimed.

Echoing similar sentiments, Praveen Shankar Kapoor, BJP spokesperson claimed that the way AAP councilors voted against their party’s mayoral candidate without resigning from the party clearly indicates their protest against the growing corruption within the party, particularly against the policies of party convenor Arvind Kejriwal.