Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta during a roadshow in support of BJP candidate from Chandni Chowk seat, Suman Kumar Gupta (right) on Friday.
| Photo Credit: PTI
Bypolls to 12 wards of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) will be held on Sunday, marking the first direct contest between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Congress in Delhi since the February 5 Assembly election.
Polling will begin at 7.30 a.m. across 580 booths and will be overseen by 2,320 Election Commission personnel. A total of 2,265 security personnel, excluding 580 Home Guards and 13 companies of the Central Armed Police Forces, have been deployed to maintain law and order. The police have categorised one booth in west Delhi and two in outer Delhi as ‘critical’.
Deputy Commissioner of Police (Outer) Sachin Sharma said drones are being used to monitor the premises of the three booths.
The Delhi State Election Commission (SEC) said metro services will begin at 4 a.m. and the Delhi Transport Corporation will run special bus services from 3.00 a.m. on Sunday and on December 3, when votes will be counted.
After voting concludes, the sealed EVMs will be stored in 10 rooms-cum-counting centres, the SEC said, adding that it will monitor the process across all wards from a control room at its headquarters.
Every ward will feature a Model Polling Booth and a Pink Booth, the latter staffed entirely by women.
Prestige battle
The bypolls will be a battle of prestige for the BJP in wards such as Shalimar Bagh and Dwarka-B. Both wards are reserved for women.
Chief Minister Rekha Gupta was the councillor from Shalimar Bagh before winning the Assembly election while Kamaljeet Sehrawat, now a Lok Sabha member, had previously represented the Dwarka-B ward.
BJP’s Anita Jain, AAP’s Babita Rana and Congress’s Sarita Kumari are contesting from Shalimar Bagh.
In Dwarka-B, the fight is between Manisha Devi of the BJP, Raj Bala of AAP, and Sumita Malik of the Congress. While the outcome of the bypolls will not affect the overall majority in the MCD House, where the BJP enjoys a majority, AAP and Congress will hope to bounce back after their poor showing in the Assembly poll.
Published – November 30, 2025 01:18 am IST
