With 156 votes and AAP’s deliberate absence, the BJP completes its clean sweep of Delhi’s power trifecta Parliament, Assembly, and now Municipal Corporation
The BJP has tightened its grip on Delhi’s governance architecture. On Wednesday, Pravesh Wahi, councillor from Rohini East, was elected Mayor of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi with a commanding 156 votes well above the 137-vote threshold required to win. Monika Pant, councillor from Anand Vihar, was simultaneously elected Deputy Mayor with an identical vote count.
Wahi’s victory was bolstered by the 14-member Indraprastha Vikas Party bloc voting in his favour. Congress candidate Hazi Zaraf managed only nine votes. The 273-member electoral college included councillors, nominated MLAs, and Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha MPs from Delhi.
Conspicuously absent was the Aam Aadmi Party, which boycotted the election entirely. AAP’s Delhi unit chief Saurabh Bharadwaj framed the walkout as strategic, saying the move would allow the party to “expose” BJP’s governance failures from the opposition bench. The last mayoral election, won by AAP’s Mahesh Kumar Khinchi in November 2024, was decided by just three votes.
That razor-thin contest feels like another era. Today, the BJP holds Delhi’s Parliament, its Assembly, and its Municipal Corporation simultaneously a consolidation of urban power without recent precedent.
“We will clean Delhi,” Wahi promised. The city will be watching.
About The Author
