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Delhi CM Rekha Gupta Oath Taking LIVE: Rekha Gupta, a first-time MLA from Shalimar Bagh, will take oath as Delhi CM; Parvesh Verma, Kapil Mishra and four other BJP MLAs to take oath as cabinet ministers
Delhi CM Rekha Gupta Oath Taking LIVE: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA-elect Rekha Gupta, a first-time MLA from Shalimar Bagh, will be sworn in as the fourth woman chief minister of Delhi on Thursday at a mega event at Ramlila Ground. The party is set to form the government in Delhi after 27 years, securing 48 seats in the 70-member legislative assembly.…Read More
BJP MLAs Parvesh Verma, Ashish Sood, Manjinder Singh Sirsa, Raviraj Indraj Singh, Kapil Mishra, and Pankaj Kumar Singh will take the oath as ministers, PTI reported.
Rekha Gupta said the first tranche of the income support to women, ₹2,500 per month, under the Mahila Samridhi Yojana, will be credited to their bank account by March 8.
The suspense over Delhi’s next chief minister ended on Wednesday. At a crucial meeting, the BJP MLAs chose Rekha Gupta (50) as the party’s leader. She met Lieutenant Governor VK Saxena and staked her claim to form the next government.
Meanwhile, the Aam Aadmi Party criticised the BJP over the delay in announcing the name and urged the party to turn its focus to law and order issues after electing its chief minister.
Delhi CM oath-taking ceremony | Key details
- The event is scheduled to begin at 11am and likely conclude by 1pm. Lieutenant Governor VK Saxena will administer the oath of office and the oath of secrecy to the new chief minister and cabinet ministers.
- Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union home minister Amit Shah, BJP president JP Nadda, several BJP chief ministers and party leaders will attend the event.
- The BJP has invited around 30,000 guests, including key RSS leaders and spiritual Dharm Gurus. Industrialists, celebrities, Laddli Bahanas, auto drivers and farmers from Delhi are also likely to attend the programme.
- Outgoing Delhi chief minister Atishi and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) national convenor Arvind Kejriwal will also be invited according to protocol.
- More than 25,000 security personnel and over 15 companies of paramilitary forces have been deployed across Delhi.
- Delhi police said commandos, quick reaction teams, PCR vans, and SWAT teams had been deployed at strategic locations while snipers were positioned at high-rise buildings nearby.
Parvesh, 47, has made several promises – making Yamuna a riverfront similar to the one at Sabarmati, giving houses to slum dwellers and providing them infrastructure, and ensuring 50,000 government jobs, flyovers, and a pollution-free national capital. (Express photo by Amit Mehra)
Parvesh Sahib Singh Verma, who dethroned AAP supremo and three-time Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal from the New Delhi seat in the recent Delhi Assembly elections, has been inducted as a minister in the BJP Cabinet headed by Rekha Gupta.
While Parvesh, a Jat leader, has been a front-runner in the chief ministerial race, the BJP leadership finally named Rekha Gupta, first-time MLA from Shalimar Bagh, for the top job.
Throughout Parvesh’s campaign, his supporters pitched him as a CM candidate. “The party will decide after February 8… If they want to make me CM, I will heed their demands,” he had then told The Indian Express.
New Delhi is the same seat from where Kejriwal defeated late Congress stalwart and ex-CM Sheila Dikshit in 2013, ending her 15-year rule. The seat, which this time also saw Sheila’s son Sandeep Dikshit in the fray on the Congress ticket (he finished a distant third), has always been a barometer of the popularity of the incumbent government in Delhi.
With 23 candidates including Kejriwal, Parvesh and Sandeep Dikshit, the contest in the New Delhi seat was intense. Parvesh finally pulled off the biggest upset of the Delhi polls, defeating Kejriwal by 4089 votes, even as the BJP stormed to power in the national capital after 27 years, winning 48 out of 70 seats as against the AAP’s 22.
Parvesh, 47, has made several promises – making Yamuna a riverfront similar to the one at Sabarmati, giving houses to slum dwellers and providing them infrastructure, and ensuring 50,000 government jobs, flyovers, and a pollution-free national capital.
The two-time West Delhi MP and one-time Mehrauli MLA, who has been with the BJP for close to three decades, kickstarted his campaign in mid-January.
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While the AAP made allegations of voter list tampering, distribution of freebies by the BJP during the imposition of the Model Code of Conduct, and voter suppression, Parvesh consistently targeted Kejriwal.
A key part of his campaign was built around allegations of massive expenditure and irregularities in the construction and renovation of 6, Flagstaff Road at Civil Lines, the official residence occupied by Kejriwal during his tenure as the CM, which has been dubbed “Sheesh Mahal” by the BJP. A model of the “Sheesh Mahal” was kept outside Parvesh’s house during his campaign.
In his rallies, Parvesh used to target the AAP chief, saying “Kejriwal has done nothing for Delhi in the last 11 years… While you all were dying of Covid, Kejriwal was busy building a ‘Sheesh Mahal’ for himself.”
He also questioned the efficacy of the AAP government’s welfare schemes, stating that they had not reached everyone in the city. He also called Kejriwal “aaropi”, referring to his alleged role in the excise policy scam case.
