Municipal election were held in Delhi on 4 December 2022 to elect 250 councillors of Municipal Corporation of Delhi. The votes were counted and the results were declared on 7 December 2022.
The Aam Aadmi Party won a simple majority in the corporation. This was the first election to the municipal corporation since its reunification in May 2022.
Background
The tenure of NDMC, SDMC and EDMC came to an end on 18 May 2022. The previous municipal elections were held in April 2017 to elect the councillors of the 3 municipal corporations.
Re-merger of municipal corporations
In March 2022, the state Election Commission indefinitely deferred the municipal elections that were scheduled to be held in April 2022. On 22 March, the Union Government approved the Delhi Municipal Corporation (Amendment) Bill to merge the 3 municipal corporations back to a single body. The unified Municipal Corporation of Delhi formally came into existence from 22 May 2022.
Events
The State Election Commission in Delhi had been preparing for the Delhi Municipal Elections had issued multiple notices, notifications and orders that had indicated that the election was planned to be conducted in April 2022.
On March 9, 2022, the State Election Commission announced a press conference at 5 pm to declare the schedule of the Municipal elections to be conducted in April. After the announcement, the commission received an unofficial communication from the Lt. Governor of Delhi Anil Baijal that talked about plans of the union government to merge the three municipal bodies. No formal communication had been issued regarding the plans for merger nor any such agenda had been declared in the ongoing budget session of the parliament of India. After the communication by Baijal, the press conference to announce the election schedule was postponed indefinitely and the elections were deferred.
Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal accused the BJP of using the unification as an excuse to postpone the elections. He stated, "Can they cancel civic polls citing this reason? If today they are giving such reasons to stop a small election, tomorrow they will delay state and national elections too."
Delimitation exercise
Delhi Municipal Corporation (Amendment) Bill, 2022 proposed a reduction in the number of councillor seats to “not more than 250 seats” from the existing 272. A three-member delimitation committee was constituted on July 8, 2022. It was required to complete the exercise and submit its report within four months from the date of its constitution. State Election Commissioner Vijay Dev leads the committee. The average size of the ward would be around 65,000. Each assembly constituency shall be divided into a minimum of three wards and the principal of average population may not be maintained throughout, therefore a deviation to the extent of plus or minus ten per cent may be acceptable to the Union Government of India. The total population of the corporation (2011 census) shall be divided by the total number of wards and the average population of each ward shall be obtained. The number of seats reserved for members of Scheduled Castes shall bear the same ratio to the total number of seats as the population of Scheduled Castes bears to the total population of Delhi. The Delimitation commission uses digitised maps of Geospatial Delhi Limited (GSDL).
Lawsuit to conduct the election
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) moved to the Supreme Court. It sought that directions be given to the State election Commission to conduct a fair and speedy election without interference from the Union government. The plea was filed by AAP leaders Ankush Narang and Manoj Kumar Tyagi. The plea asked that the election be conducted according to the planned schedule of the Election commission before the term of the Municipal corporations expires in May.
The plea stated, "The elections have been pushed in the eleventh hour solely on an informal intimation to the State Election Commission. The State Election Commission has been set up as an independent constitutional authority to insulate it from political caprices and whims so that it can conduct free, fair and timely elections. Such arbitrary and sudden change in an election schedule solely on the say of the government is a clear violation of the fundamental democratic tenet of impartial conduct of elections". The plea called the incident, "brazen influence of the Government of India over the State Election Commission and its flagrant meddling with the conduct of Municipal Elections". The plea accused the Union government of infringing upon the independence of the election commission by being the only reason to delay the election.