MCG ends deadlock; ‘Rao vs Rao’ returns

The Haryana government has fixed April 30 for Gurugram’s delayed vote for Senior Deputy Mayor and Deputy Mayor, ending an eight-month standoff at the Municipal Corporation of Gurugram. (tribuneindia.com) (timesofindia.indiatimes.com) The election is scheduled for 11 a.m. on Thursday, April 30, at the Haryana Institute of Public Administration in Gurugram, with Mayor Raj Rani Malhotra presiding. (tribuneindia.com) Those two posts should have been filled after the March 2025 civic election, but an August 11, 2025 attempt was postponed indefinitely after the Bharatiya Janata Party failed to settle on names. (timesofindia.indiatimes.com) (tribuneindia.com) The numbers explain why the fight is inside the ruling party, not between parties. BJP won 24 of the 36 elected ward seats in March 2025, and eight of the 10 independents later joined the party. (timesofindia.indiatimes.com 1) (timesofindia.indiatimes.com 2) What remains unsettled is which BJP faction controls the two seats. The contest has become another round in the rivalry between Union minister Rao Inderjit Singh and Haryana minister Rao Narbir Singh. (tribuneindia.com) That rivalry sharpened after Manesar’s municipal corporation elected its own deputy mayors in August 2025, when the Rao Narbir camp won both posts and the Rao Inderjit camp stayed away. (tribuneindia.com 1) (tribuneindia.com 2) Rao Inderjit’s side improved its position in September 2025, when seven rebel or expelled independent councillors re-entered the BJP fold in Gurugram; The Tribune reported that at least five were seen as aligned with him. (tribuneindia.com) The delay also moved from politics into court. On March 5, 2026, the Municipal Corporation told the Punjab and Haryana High Court it would hold the elections within eight weeks after a petition by Gurugram resident and advocate Rohit Madan. (timesofindia.indiatimes.com) (timesofindia.indiatimes.com) The vacant posts mattered beyond protocol because Haryana law requires the two deputy mayors to sit on the Finance and Contracts Committee, the panel that handles key municipal spending decisions. (timesofindia.indiatimes.com) Candidate names are expected only at the April 30 meeting, and if only one nomination is filed for each post, both winners can be declared unopposed. (timesofindia.indiatimes.com) By Thursday afternoon, Gurugram is likely to know whether the corporation’s year-old vacancies are finally filled — and which Rao camp can claim the result as its own. (tribuneindia.com)