Municipal Corporations: Nominated AAP MLAs hardly attend any meet

Of the 13 AAP MLAs nominated to the three municipal corporations, six have not attended even a single House meeting of the civic bodies in 2015-16. Recently, 10 of these 13 legislators were re-nominated to the three corporations by the Delhi Assembly Speaker.

As per the attendance record for the year 2015-16, two AAP MLAs — former minister Rakhi Birla and current environment minister Imran Hussain — as nominated members to the North Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC), did not attend a single House meeting during this period. Ms Birla has been re-nominated by the Speaker for another one-year term.

AAP MLA from Kirari Ritu Raj Govind, who was also re-nominated this year, had attended four meetings last year held in June, July, August and September. In terms of attendance, Sadar Bazar MLA Som Dutt, who was also re-nominated for another term in the NDMC, had attended five meetings — the maximum among all the nominated members. Sukhbir Singh, fifth nominated MLA in the NDMC last year, attended two meetings.

Speaker Ram Niwas Goel has replaced Mr Hussain and Mr Singh this year in the NDMC with another two AAP MLAs, Ajesh Yadav and Pawan Kumar Sharma.

Similarly, attendance records of all five nominated MLAs in the South Delhi Municipal corporation (SDMC) are also poor.

Narayan Dutt Sharma, Mahinder Yadav, Sahi Ram, Gulab Singh and Promila Tokas have been re-nominated to the SDMC by the Speaker, Delhi Assembly in SDMC this year. Among five nominated MLAs in the SDMC, only Mr Yadav and Mr Singh attended one and two meetings respectively, during the first year of their nomination. Remaining three, Mr Sharma, Ms Tokas and Mr Ram, never attended any meeting.

In East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC), out of three nominated MLAs only S.K. Bagga attended one meeting last year out of 20 meetings held. Mr Bagga was re-nominated this year. Shri Dutt Sharma and Raju Dhingan have nominated this year to the EDMC. Leader of EDMC House Sanjay Jain said Mr Dhingan had not attended any meeting last year.

Leader of Opposition in the Delhi Assembly Vijender Gupta told this newspaper that by going through the attendance records and going by the re-nomination of 10 MLAs for another term it is apparent that non-performance is also rewarded in the AAP. “Re-nomination is done against the violation of the Delhi Municipal Act and if it has been done then their performance should be checked. Re-nominating members who never attended a single meeting, means that they have been rewarded for their bad performance,” added Mr Gupta.

The city MLAs are nominated to the civic bodies by the Speaker under Section 3(3)(b)(iii) of the Delhi Municipal Act, 1957, which said, “...as nearly as possible one-fifth of the members of the Legislative Assembly of the National Capital Territory of Delhi representing constituencies which comprise wholly or partly the area of the corporation to be nominated by the Speaker of that Legislative Assembly.”