AALEY Muhammad Iqbal, Aam Aadmi Party’s Deputy Mayor candidate, has won the election to the post. He received 31 more votes than his only rival of the Bharatiya Janata Party - Kamal Bagri.

In total Iqbal had received 147 votes against his rival Kamal Bagri’s 116. Iqbal is a social activist and his father is also a Member of the Legislative Assembly in Delhi from the AAP.

Also Watch:

A young politician, Aaley Muhammed Iqbal (29), was AAP’s Deputy Mayor candidate. He boasts of having the experience of being a three-time councillor in the city. He is the councillor from the Chandini Mahal ward of Delhi. Another feather in Iqbal’s hat is his victory margin, which was the highest, in the recently concluded election.

Many political observers had been saying that Iqbal’s candidacy as the Deputy Mayor of Municipal Corporation of Delhi was an attempt by the AAP to woo the Muslim voters of the city who had apparently been distancing themselves from the party following the fatal riots in East Delhi in 2020 over the Citizenship Amendment Act. However, his father has a different take on the matter.

“Iqbal’s selection is the party’s recognition of his talent and experience. He won with the highest vote margin in the MCD this year and also is a three-time councilor. This time, there are many first time councilors. He has more experience and is a talented young person. Whatever Kejriwalji does, he does it with great thought. It is true the party lost some Muslim votes this time, but that could also be due to unsatisfactory performance of some MLAs. However, we won all seats in the Muslim-dominated areas of the walled city,” Shoiab Iqbal, Deputy Mayor’s father, was quoted by ThePrint as saying.

During the MCD polls, Aaley had defeated his BJP rival by a margin of 17,000 votes. On several issues concerning the minority community in the country, AAP Chief Arvind Kejriwal has been uncharacteristically non-vocal.

Professor-turned-politician Shelly Oberoi, who was AAP’s Mayoral candidate in the just concluded polls, has also won her election defeating her BJP rival Rekha Gupta by a margin of 34 votes.