Will keep corruption at bay: New South Delhi Mayor

With the three BJP-led municipal corporations facing corruption charges from the opposition, South Delhi's newly-elected Mayor Subhash Arya has set his top priorities -- to maintain independence of SDMC and keep the civic body corruption free.
"The years to come ahead will be a challenge for us. We will work towards maintaining transparency. Our previous two mayors have also worked hard, and we will take their work forward.
"Out top priorities would be independence of the corporation, maintaining transparency and keeping corruption away, e-governance, sanitation and education and parks," he said.
The 71-year-old BJP leader posted his victory at the mayoral polls by defeating Congress' senior leader Farhad Suri, a former Mayor, with a margin of 19 votes, as BJP repeated its municipal triumph in the high-stake elections on Friday.

His election as South Delhi Mayor also marks his eventful journey from a humble Jana Sangh worker to one of the top municipal posts in the city, where he first came to, as a four-year-old partition refugee from Pakistan.
Born in 1943 in Jhelum in Pakistan, Arya, currently a veteran BJP leader in South Delhi Municipal Corporation, saw through vicissitudes of fortune and political turmoils, in the last nearly seven decades, an experience, that he says has held him in good stead.

"I came to Delhi along with my family after leaving Pakistan in 1947. We first settled in Fazilka in Punjab. And, in December 1947, we moved to old Delhi's Darya Ganj... My father was RSS Jhelum sanghchalak. And, after leaving everything behind in Pakistan, our struggle began in India," Arya told PTI.

A four-term councillor from Rajouri Garden, he began his journey into politics as a young boy, when in 1958, he became a member of the Jana Sangh.
Arya was elected as a Metropolitan Councillor in 1983, a post then similar to an MLA, which he served till 1990.
In 1997, he fought the municipal polls from Rajouri Garden and won, the councillor seat, which he has kept since then for the last 18 years, despite changes in the municipal set up.
The BJP-led civic bodies have been facing corruption charges from Congress, the main opposition, and AAP too has alleged that the "corporations have become a den of corruption".