Deputy Mayor Quits F&CC Seat; Poll on Oct 1

GURUGRAM: Deputy Mayor Anoop Singh has resigned as an elected councillor member of the Municipal Corporation of Gurugram's Finance and Contracts Committee, opening a vacancy on the panel that clears the civic body's contracts and purchases.

Singh stepped down from the elected councillor seat after he was appointed deputy mayor on 14 September. That post already makes him a member of the Finance and Contracts Committee by virtue of office. MCG will hold an election on 1 October to fill the vacant councillor slot.

BJP councillor Ashish Gupta of Ward 27 filed his nomination on Monday and is expected to be elected unopposed, sources in the corporation said. MCG will formally confirm the result on 1 October. If no other nomination comes in, the corporation will treat the outcome as a formality rather than a contested floor fight.

Singh had been elected as one of the two councillor members of the committee on 11 August 2025, along with Sundar Singh of Ward 1. Both had filed nominations unopposed that year. The elected councillor seats are meant to keep ordinary house members on the panel that clears contracts, alongside the mayor and deputy mayors who sit there by office.

How F&CC is built and who sits on it now

Under the Haryana Municipal Corporation Act, 1994, the Finance and Contracts Committee has six members: the mayor, two deputy mayors, two members elected by councillors from among themselves, and the commissioner. It deals with financial and contractual matters, including contracts entered into for the corporation and purchases made on its behalf.

As listed after Singh's elevation, the committee comprises Mayor Raj Rani Malhotra, Senior Deputy Mayor Dharmabir Bhangrola, Deputy Mayor Anoop Singh, Ward 1 councillor Sundar Singh and MCG Commissioner Pradeep Dahiya, with one elected councillor seat vacant until the 1 October poll. Until that seat is filled, the panel is short of its full elected councillor strength even though Singh remains present in his deputy mayor capacity.

An MCG official said the deputy mayor resigned the councillor member seat because he is already on the committee through his new office, so the vacancy has to be filled. Officials also said there is no provision that bars a councillor from holding two positions at once; the resignation was handled as a seat-balance step rather than a disqualification fight.

F and CC clearances matter for day-to-day civic spending, from works tenders to purchases. Recent corporation work on parking tenders, office construction and sanitation contracts has gone through the same panel, which is why councillors watch who holds the elected seats. The October election is a short, formal process if only one nomination stands.

House members who are not on F and CC still vote in the full house, but the committee is where contract files are first examined. Filling the vacant elected seat restores the two-councillor balance the Act contemplates. Corporation information is published at https://mcg.gov.in/.