BJP's Ravinder Gupta elected North Delhi Mayor

NEW DELHI: BJP continued its winning streak in the mayoral polls as the ruling party's candidate Ravinder Gupta today defeated Congress rival Harsh Sharma by a margin of 41 votes to be elected as the mayor of North Delhi.

While Gupta polled 67 votes, Sharma could only get 26. Out of the total of 95 votes, two were declared invalid, a NDMC official said.

The elections for the Mayor, Deputy Mayor and three members of the standing committee in the North Delhi Municipal Corporation were held today at the NDMC's headquarters at the Civic Centre here.

With this win, Gupta makes his transition as a Mayor from being the Deputy Mayor of the corporation.

BJP also won the post of Deputy Mayor in the 104-member NDMC House, as Neelam Goel defeated her Congress rival Guddi Devi.

Incidentally, while all AAP MLAs chose to continue to stay away from the municipal polls, AAP councillor (Kucha Pandit ward) Rakesh Kumar, who was present in the NDMC House, "refused" to vote, alleging corruption in the BJP-led civic body. AAP had also boycotted the SDMC and EDMC mayoral polls.

"I boycott this election as there is corruption in the BJP-led NDMC in my area," he said, and immediately walked out of the House.