MCD polls to be held on April 22

New Delhi: Elections to the three municipal corporations in the national capital will be held on April 22, which is seen as a popularity test for the ruling Aam Aadmi Party.

Counting will take place on April 25 while the nomination process will begin from March 27. April 3 would be the last date for filing nominations. Scrutiny of nominations will take place on April 5.

State Election Commissioner S K Srivastava said that the last date for withdrawal of nomination is April 8 for 272 wards municipal elections.

The upcoming polls are being seen as crucial for the AAP as it has “failed” to perform in Punjab and Goa elections.

AAP Delhi convenor Dilip Pandey welcomed the announcement of poll dates and exuded confidence, saying “Delhi will vote for AAP on similar lines the way it trusted the party during Assembly polls.”

BJP, which has been ruling all three MCDs for 10 years, has decided to drop all its sitting councillors from the list of candidates, a move intended to “infuse fresh blood” into civic body polls.

Shailendra Sing Monti, Chairman, Standing Committee, SDMC, said “BJP will perform well in MCD polls (Delhi nagar nigam chunav mein bhi bajega bhajpa ka danka.”

Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee (DPCC) also said that it is prepared for the MCD polls.

The State Election Commissioner said the expenditure limit for a candidate has been hiked from Rs 5 lakh to Rs 5.75 lakh.

The erstwhile unified Municipal Corporation of Delhi was trifurcated in 2012 into North, South and East Municipal Corporation or NDMC, SDMC and EDMC respectively.

The BJP has been ruling the MCD since 2007. The last polls were held in 2012.

The much-awaited polls will decide the fate of 272 councillors. While NDMC and SMDC have 104 seats each, EDMC has 64 seats.

The total number of electorate for the civic polls stands at 1,32,10,206, which include 73,15,915 men, 58,93,418 women and 793 voters in the other category, the state election commission said .