Reacting to the news, MCD Mayor Kanwar Sen said: 'This is a politically motivated step. We protest it. Because they (the Congress) have a government at the centre and in the state, they are trying to take undue advantage. It is also an infringement on the rights of the municipal corporation.

'We will discuss with our senior leaders and take opinion of legal experts to outline our future course of action. We are ready to go to court if needed or to come out on the streets to protest,' Sen told IANS.

'The allegations of inefficiency against the MCD are nothing but the Delhi government's malicious campaign to cover up the inefficiencies of their own agencies,' Sen added.

The MCD came into existence April 7, 1958, under an act of parliament. It is one of three civic bodies in Delhi, the others are the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC), which looks after an area of about 42 sq km of central Delhi, and the Delhi Cantonment Board.

Successive chief ministers, particularly Dixit, have been pleading for placing the MCD, perceived by the average citizen as a highly corrupt and unresponsive local body, under the control of the state government to streamline its functioning and make it accountable to the public.