New Delhi:
Parvesh Singh Verma and Kapil Mishra will be part of incoming Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta’s new seven-member Bharatiya Janata Party government for the national capital, a notification from President Droupadi Murmu’s office said Thursday morning, hours before the oath ceremony.
Ms Murmu’s notifications – the first confirmed Rekha Gupta as Chief Minister – also named Manjinder Singh Sirsa, Ashish Sood, Pankaj Kumar Singh, and Ravinder Indraj Singh to the cabinet.
Portfolios have not been assigned as yet.
READ | Delhi Gets New Chief Minister, Mega Oath Ceremony Today
All the ministers will take oath in a mega ceremony at Delhi’s Ramlila Maidan.
The BJP has gone all-out in prepping for the ceremony, with invitations extended not only to movie stars and industrialists, but also the ‘aam aadmi‘, including auto rickshaw drivers and farmers.
READ | Women, Farmers On BJP’s ‘Aam Aadmi’ Guest List For Delhi Oath
What The New Ministers Said
Mr Mishra, accused of making hate speeches during communal riots in Delhi in 2020, told news agency ANI the previous government had “betrayed the people of Delhi” and had been punished by the people.
#WATCH | BJP leader Kapil Mishra, who will take oath as a Delhi minister today, says, “… All of us will work together to implement PM Modi’s vision. They (AAP) betrayed the people of Delhi, and they received their punishment through the power of vote… There will be an… pic.twitter.com/O4fuFVRKuS
— ANI (@ANI) February 20, 2025
“There will be an investigation against the corruption of the Aam Aadmi Party and Arvind Kejriwal,” he said after visiting the Jhandewala Devi Mandir, or temple, in Karol Bagh to offer prayers.
Meanwhile, Mr Sirsa thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, and BJP chief JP Nadda for “this opportunity to work as a Delhi minister”. “It is an opportunity for all of us to work together to make Delhi beautiful once again…” he told ANI.
#WATCH | BJP leader Manjinder Singh Sirsa, who will take oath as a Delhi minister today, says, “I thank PM Narendra Modi, Amit Shah, JP Nadda, Baijayant Panda and Virendraa Sachdeva. They included me in the team which has been formed to realise the vision of PM Modi for… pic.twitter.com/IHdiirdAuZ
— ANI (@ANI) February 20, 2025
The notifications completed a suspense-filled 12 days since the Delhi Assembly election that the BJP won, convincingly. The BJP thumped the Aam Aadmi Party – ex-Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s party, which has had control of the national capital since 2013, winning 48 of the city’s 70 seats.
The AAP, dominant winners in the past two polls, with 67 and 62 seats, picked up the rest.
However, between the results being declared on February 8 and late last night there was uncertainty over who would replace the AAP’s Atishi as Chief Minister, with the BJP playing its cards close to its chest. Speculation, and there was plenty of that, was put to rest after the party appointed Ms Gupta.
The delay, sources told NDTV, was partly because of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to France and the United States, which postponed meetings of the party’s Parliamentary Board and of the newly elected legislators, both of which were completed yesterday.
BJP Picks Rekha Gupta
Rekha Gupta will be the BJP’s first Delhi Chief Minister in nearly three decades.
READ | First-Time MLA Rekha Gupta Named Delhi’s New Chief Minister
Ms Gupta, a first-time MLA from Shalimar Bagh, will also be the party’s second woman Delhi Chief Minister, succeeding the late Sushma Swaraj, who was also the last BJP leader to hold this post.
She spoke to The Hindkesharithis morning and said she did not know, yesterday, when she left her home for the legislators’ meeting, that she would be picked to head the government.
READ | All About Rekha Gupta, Delhi’s Fourth Woman Chief Minister
“When I left home, I did not know that I would become the Chief Minister,” she said, adding also that it was Mr Verma, in fact, who proposed her name for the top post.
Mr Verma, a two-time former Lok Sabha MP and the son of another former Delhi Chief Minister, Saheb Singh Verma, was widely seen as the frontrunner for the post, particularly since he had also beaten Arvind Kejriwal to win the prized New Delhi constituency.
That two of the last three Delhi Chief Ministers also held that post – Mr Kejriwal and the Congress’ Sheila Dikshit – seemed to strengthen his claim. The BJP’s senior leadership, though, didn’t agree.
Ms Gupta’s appointment, instead, underlines the party’s focus on women voters in this and recent elections. A focus that was evident in how the BJP, the AAP, and even the Congress, routed though it was for a third consecutive election, approached campaigning – with special promises for women.
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