Delhi portfolios allocated, Arvind Kejriwal to stay without a ministry: Report

Arvind Kejriwal, who took oath as the chief minister of Delhi on Sunday along with six ministers, will not hold any portfolio, according to news agency ANI.

Satyendar Kumar Jain will be in charge of Delhi Jal Board (DJB) and the department of environment has been allocated to Gopal Rai, it reported.

Jain had held the portfolios of health, industries, power, public works department, home and urban development in the previous Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government.

Gopal Rai, a Kejriwal confidante, was in charge of the rural development department apart from holding the general administration department, irrigation and flood control and labour.

The department of women and child development will be handled by Rajendra Pal Gautam. A lawyer, Gautam was in charge of the social welfare department along with SC & ST, gurudwara elections, water and registrar of cooperative societies in his previous stint.

Kejriwal has retained all the six ministers who served his government in the previous term – his deputy Manish Sisodia, Satyendar Jain, Imran Hussain, Gopal Rai, Rajendra Gautam and Kailash Gehlot.

Manish Sisodia, the force behind the reforms in public schools as the education minister, had also held the crucial portfolios for finance, planning, tourism, land and building, vigilance, services, women and child development along with art, culture and languages.

Imran Hussain had held the triple charge for the departments of environment and forest, food and supply and election.

Kailash Gahlot looked after the departments of transport, revenue, law, justice and legislative affairs, information and technology and administrative reforms.

The Delhi legislative assembly has 70 seats and the Union territory can have a maximum of seven ministers including the chief ministers. According to rules, the council of ministers in Delhi can’t consist of more than 10% of the total number of members in the legislative assembly.

The AAP won 62 seats in the 70-member Delhi Assembly, while the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) bagged the remaining eight seats.