Who is Pravesh Wahi? BJP candidate elected MCD mayor

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate Pravesh Wahi was elected Mayor of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) on Wednesday.

Wahi, councillor from Rohini East, won with 156 votes, including support from 14 councillors of the Indraprastha Vikas Party, while Congress candidate Hazi Zaraf secured nine votes, according to PTI.

Meanwhile, BJP councillor from Anand Vihar, Monika Pant, was elected Deputy Mayor after also receiving 156 votes.

Jai Bhagwan Yadav from Begumpur and Manish Chadha from Paharganj were elected to the Standing Committee from the BJP, while AAP councillor Jalaj Chaudhary from Shalimar Bagh was also chosen as a member of the MCD panel.

After being elected Mayor, Pravesh Wahi thanked Chief Minister Rekha Gupta and the BJP leadership, saying that the party would focus on cleaning Delhi in the coming months and work towards the city’s overall development.

He stated, "We will clean Delhi in the coming months. We will work for the development of Delhi."

Who is Pravesh Wahi?

Wahi comes from a Khatri Punjabi family that migrated from Rawalpindi. He received his early education at an MCD primary school in Old Delhi and has been associated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) since his teenage years, according to multiple reports.

He was first elected as a councillor from Rohini in 2007 and later represented Naharpur, serving his second term from 2012 to 2017. Over the years, he held several key positions, including chairman of the Rohini Zonal Committee from 2010 to 2012 and chairman of the Standing Committee in the erstwhile North Corporation from 2016 to 2017.

Wahi worked as an area representative for the Vishva Hindu Parishad in 1990 and later went on to become a district president in 1998. He joined the BJP Yuva Morcha in 2002 and took on several organisational responsibilities before stepping into electoral politics.

MCD mayoral election

The electoral college for this year’s mayoral election consisted of 273 votes, including 249 councillors, 14 MLAs nominated by the Delhi Assembly, seven Lok Sabha MPs, and three Rajya Sabha members from Delhi. A candidate needed at least 137 votes to secure victory.

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chose to abstain from the mayoral election. Earlier, Delhi unit president Saurabh Bharadwaj said in a statement that this decision would allow the BJP to take control of the civic body and would also help AAP highlight and challenge the ruling party’s governance.

Bhardway stated, "Despite having power at all levels, the BJP has failed to bring about any change in Delhi. The BJP does not know how to perform. Only AAP knows how to work."

Earlier, the mayoral post was held by AAP, with Mahesh Kumar Khinchi winning the election in November 2024 by a narrow margin of just three votes.

The three civic bodies, East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC), North Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC), and South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC), were merged into a single body on May 22, 2022, forming the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD).

(With inputs from agency)