BJP backtracks on race for mayor after MCD poll loss

New Delhi: In a big climbdown from their position on the election of the Delhi Mayor, after their defeat in the MCD polls, the BJP today said the next Mayor will be from the Aam Aadmi Party as it got the majority.

"BJP will play the role of a strong opposition in the MCD," Delhi BJP President Adesh Gupta told NDTV today, adding that his party will not allow any corruption, and act as "a watchdog" in MCD.

"Delhi should be clean and MCD should do good work, it will be our priority," he added.

Earlier, the BJP had suggested that the AAP may have won the majority in the MCD polls, but the Mayor's election is still an open game, while noting that Chandigarh, where its rival was the largest party, has a mayor from BJP. "Now over to electing a mayor for Delhi. It will all depend on who can hold the numbers in a close contest, which way the nominated councillors vote etc. Chandigarh has a BJP mayor, for instance," BJP's IT department head Amit Malviya had said in a tweet.

Though the AAP had emerged as the single largest party by winning 14 seats in the Chandigarh municipal polls for 35 wards, but it had not won a majority. The AAP on Wednesday dismantled the BJP in the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) polls by winning 134 wards, ending the 15-year rule of the BJP in the prestigious municipal corporation and reducing the Congress to just nine seats in a House of 250.