New Delhi, Apr 26 (PTI) The AAP on Wednesday took a dig at the Bharatiya Janata Party, saying that its Delhi unit has not only embarrassed itself, but also the entire party after its mayoral candidate withdrew her nomination.

The Aam Aadmi Party's Shelly Oberoi and Aaley Mohammad Iqbal won their second terms as the mayor and deputy mayor of Delhi after their respective rivals Sikha Rai and Soni Pal withdrew their candidatures on Wednesday.

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Addressing a press conference, AAP's chief spokesperson Saurabh Bharadwaj Bharadwaj, criticised the BJP's decision to participate in the election despite not having enough councillors to support their candidate.

Pointing out how embarrassing a defeat this was for the BJP, he said that either they should have decided not to contest the election or else should have had the courage to fight it.

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"On the one hand the BJP decides to fight the election and announces its candidates, but when it is time for battle, it surrenders. That too they surrendered after going around screaming to the media that their party had the numbers and the mayor would belong to the BJP," Bharadwaj, who is also Delhi's urban development minister, said.

"Therefore, I think that today is a day of embarrassment for the entire BJP. Their Delhi unit has not only embarrassed themselves, but has embarrassed the national unit of the party as well," he added.

The Delhi BJP, however, said it had decided to withdraw the nominations as "despite our best efforts, the AAP is not ready to make MCD functional by allowing the formation of the standing committee and the ward committees".

Bharadwaj accused the BJP of trying to buy councillors since the time of nomination of their candidate for the post of mayor and said that it shows their desperation to win at any cost.

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has been working towards improving the conditions of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), and the recent victory in the mayoral polls has only strengthened the Arvind Kejriwal-led party's position, he said adding that they have promised to make the civic body corruption-free and improve the living conditions of the residents.

"We want to thank the residents of Delhi and want to inform them that the developmental works that have been started in the MCD by Dr Shelly Oberoi will now further gather pace and once the Standing Committee is constituted these works will be completed at the earliest," he said.

The mayoral election in Delhi was supposed to be a direct contest between incumbent Oberoi and Rai.

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is the ruling party in the MCD.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)