Rekha Gupta sworn in as Delhi CM; six ministers take oath of office

Rekha Gupta, a first-time lawmaker, was sworn in as the Delhi chief minister on Thursday at Ramlila Maidan at a ceremony attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union home minister Amit Shah among other top National Democratic Alliance (NDA) leaders.

The development comes 12 days after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was voted back to power in the national Capital after 27 years.

Six MLAs, Parvesh Sahib Singh Verma, who defeated former chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, Ashish Sood, Manjinder Singh Sirsa, Ravinder Indraj Singh, Kapil Mishra, and Pankaj Singh were also sworn in as ministers into Gupta’s Cabinet.

Lieutenant Governor (L-G) of Delhi Vinai Kumar Saxena administered oath of office and secrecy to the CM and the ministers at the function.

Earlier in the day, the President Droupadi Murmu appointed Gupta as the chief minister of Delhi and other six MLAs as ministers in Delhi according to the advice of the CM.

Also Read:Delhi CM Oath Taking LIVE: Rekha Gupta takes oath as chief minister, six ministers join cabinet

The swearing-in ceremony was a grand show of strength by the NDA. Along with PM Modi and Shah, it was attended by NDA chief ministers, spiritual leaders from different communities, representatives from various citizens groups such as auto drivers, sanitation workers, RWA members, various communities belonging to the OBC category, slum dwellers and roadside vendors.

Gupta won from the Shalimar Bagh constituency by 29,595 votes after defeating Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) candidate Bandana Kumari.

The results of the assembly elections were declared on February 8. The BJP won 48 seats out of the 70 total seats while AAP won 22 seats.

Gupta, who rose through the ranks as a student leader, is a three-time councillor. She met lieutenant governor VK Saxena to stake claim to form the government after BJP legislators picked her as the chief minister.

Gupta joined the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the student wing of BJP’s ideological fount Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), in the 1990s. She becomes the fourth woman chief minister of Delhi after Sushma Swaraj, Sheila Dikshit, and Atishi.

Gupta will be the second BJP woman chief minister since Anandiben Patel took Gujarat’s top political post in 2014. Mamata Banerjee is the only other woman chief minister in the country.