MCD aldermen row: AAP, BJP stage demonstrations

New Delhi: The AAP and BJP continued to hit the streets over the issue of oath to aldermen in the MCD House last week, and the ensuing row, with both parties staging demonstrations against each other on Monday.

The Delhi BJP staged a protest near Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's residence in Civil Lines over an alleged attack on BJP councillors by their AAP counterparts in the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) meeting last Friday.

The Aam Aadmi Party had on Saturday staged a protest outside LG VK Saxena's house over the appointment of aldermen by him, accusing him of helping BJP gain control over the standing committee and zonal committees of the MCD.

As he led the protesters near Kejriwal's house, Delhi BJP working president Virendra Sachdeva said, "What happened in the MCD House on January 6 was extremely shameful. The AAP councillors attacked BJP councillors including women. We are prepared to retaliate to the hooliganism of the AAP." He said the party will not relent until Kejriwal apologises over the "hooliganism" of his councillors.

Police on Monday detained several leaders including Sachdeva, MP Parvesh Verma, state general secretaries Harsh Malhotra and Dinesh Pratap Singh, and state vice president Sunil Yadav, as they tried to cross a police barricade at Chandgi Ram Akhara, en route to Chief Minister's residence.

They were later released by the police, the party said.

A row erupted between AAP and BJP councillors on Friday in the MCD house, when AAP councillors opposed oath being administered to the 10 aldermen appointed by the LG.

The meeting was adjourned without election to the posts of mayor, deputy mayor, and members of the standing committee.

AAP volunteers led by minister Raaj Kumar Anand and party chief spokesperson and MLA Saurabh Bhardwaj protested near BJP headquarters at ITO.

"The BJP and LG have murdered the constitution by trying to get aldermen to vote in the mayor's election despite not having the right to vote.

"The LG should act as a fair umpire but when the umpire joins a team with dishonesty, then protest is the only option left," Bhardwaj said.

AAP's mayoral candidate Shelly Oberoi said that nominated aldermen were being administered the oath first with a plan to give them the voting right.

Experts of civic issues are nominated as aldermen to the MCD, who can vote in the zonal committee elections.

The BJP had earlier said that AAP disrupted the oath ceremony because it was scared of dissension within its own ranks.

"Why are they scared to face the MCD House elections? Kejriwal knows that his party is divided because two mayoral candidates and two deputy mayor candidates came up from his party and hooliganism was resorted to by the AAP to keep its ranks united," Sachdeva claimed.

Bhardwaj said that the AAP has been asking the LG to assure the party that the aldermen will not be allowed to vote in the mayor's election.

"This is what is written in the Constitution and the DMC Act and the LG is bound by duty to obey the rules, but the LG and the BJP have been trying otherwise," he said.