Shelly Oberoi candidate of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has won the mayoral polls. She defeated Rekha Gupta of the Bharatiya Janata Party by a margin of 34 votes. The elections were pending after AAP won the MCD elections in December last year. The political discord between the Aam Aadmi Party and Bharati Janata Party caused the last three attempts to elect the Mayor to be unsuccessful.
First-time councilor from Delhi’s East Patel Nagar Oberoi has secured 150 votes whereas Rekha Gupta received only 116 votes. Congratulating the new mayor over her win, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and his Deputy Manish Sisodia said, “The goons have lost, the public won. Today in the Municipal Corporation of Delhi, the people of Delhi won and hooliganism was defeated."
Shelly Oberoi is a former Delhi University professor who was born in Delhi in 1983. She did her master’s in commerce from Himachal Pradesh University. She has also received the “Miss Kamla Rani Prize”. She has completed a certificate program in management from IIM, Kozhikode. Her LinkedIn profile states that she is a lifetime member of the Indian Commerce Association (ICA) and earned her Ph.D. from the School of Management Studies at Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU). She has been recognized with several accolades in different conferences.
Her political journey started in 2013 when she joined Aam Aadmi Party. Later in 2020, she was appointed as the Delhi AAP’s vice-president of the women’s wing. In December 2022, she won the MCD civic election from ward number 86 by defeating the BJP opponent by a margin of 269 votes.
She reassured the members that she will operate the house in accordance with the constitution and appealed to them for their cooperation.
"I assure you all that I will run this House in a constitutional manner. I expect you all will maintain the dignity of the House and cooperate in its smooth functioning," she said after taking the seat of mayor.