This Article is From Feb 25, 2023

BJP's "Khalnayika" vs AAP's "Ballot Chor" Poster Battle Over Civic Body

The poster war came a day after a physical fight in the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) as BJP and AAP members kicked, punched and pushed one another.

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BJP and AAP members have been clashed in the MCD assembly for days.

New Delhi:

The weekend interlude to the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the BJP's pitched battle over Delhi's municipal body found a relatively more creative outlet than bare-knuckle punches and high-velocity water bottles in the form of online name-calling.

Drawing from a 90s movie poster, the BJP dubbed senior AAP leader Atishi "Khalnayika" or "villain" while the Arvind Kejriwal-led party hit back, calling BJP leaders like Gautam Gambhir "Ballot Chor Machaye Shor".

The poster war came a day after a physical fight in the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) as BJP and AAP members kicked, punched and pushed one another amid shouting after mayor Shelly Oberoi of the AAP declared one vote invalid in the election to the key six-member municipal committee.

During the chaos, which forced the adjournment of the MCD House proceedings till Monday, a councillor, Ashok Manu, collapsed. He was rushed to a nearby hospital.

The mayor has said the election exercise would begin afresh as ballot papers and other key documents were torn or lost in Friday's dustup.

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The BJP, which lost the MCD elections held in December, on Saturday claimed that each of the two parties was supposed to get three members in the civic body's standing committee, based on calculations by technical experts a day prior and that the mayor should accept this result and announce it.

Addressing a press conference in Delhi, Virendra Sachdeva, the Delhi BJP's working president, alleged that the re-election called by Mayor Shelly Oberoi to elect six members of the standing committee was "undemocratic" and "unconstitutional".

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"BJP members will go to the House on Monday. Maybe the mayor will agree to our demands. But we may explore legal avenues if our demands are not met," he said.

AAP MLA Atishi told reporters after Friday's pandemonium that a mayor, as a presiding officer of the House, "has the power to declare a vote invalid" and if the BJP members disagreed, they could go to a court to challenge it but "they resorted to violence".

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The AAP has also charged the BJP councillors of misbehaving with their councillors and even "attacking" mayor Ms Oberoi.

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