The name of Delhi’s next Chief Minister, the first from the Bharatiya Janata Party in the national capital in over three decades, will be unveiled this evening.
BJP Gears Up to Finalize New Delhi CM Amid Key Meeting at PM’s Residence
The selection process began at midday, when the BJP’s Parliamentary Board, the party’s top decision-making body, convened to choose ex-Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad and the party’s National Secretary, Om Prakash Dhankar, as ‘observers’ for the meeting of newly-elected MLAs later today.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose trips to France and the United States slowed the selection process, attended the meeting. The BJP’s MLAs will now convene at 6.15 p.m., with Mr Prasad and Mr Dhankar present, to elect their leader in the Assembly, who will become Chief Minister.
The new Chief Minister will then take his or her oath in a magnificent ceremony at 11 a.m. Thursday.
The oath ceremony, which will be conducted in the city’s historic Ramlila Maidan, will go from 11 a.m. until 12.34 p.m., sources said. The oath will be administered at 12:05 p.m.
According to sources, there will be three stages: one for the Prime Minister, Home Minister Amit Shah, Lieutenant Governor VK Saxena, and the incoming Chief Minister, a second for invited religious leaders, and a third for MPs and MLAs, of which over 200 from the BJP and allies have been invited.
Atishi, the departing Chief Minister, and AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal, as well as Devender Yadav, the president of the Congress’ Delhi unit, have all been invited.
Suspense over Delhi’s Chief Minister
Last week, a shortlist of 15 candidates had been selected from among the 48 BJP MLAs to fill the positions of Chief Minister, members of his/her cabinet, and Assembly Speaker.
The odds-on favourite for the top job is two-time ex-MP Parvesh Verma, who beat Arvind Kejriwal in the New Delhi constituency.
Others on the BJP’s chief ministerial shortlist include Virendra Sachdeva, the party’s Delhi unit head, and Bansuri Swaraj, a first-time MP and daughter of the late former Union Minister Sushma Swaraj. Satish Upadhyay, the BJP’s Brahmin representative in Delhi, is also an option.
There has also been speculation that the BJP may choose a woman as Chief Minister. The BJP’s new MLAs include four women: Neelam Pahalwan, Rekha Gupta, Poonam Sharma, and Shikha Roy.
Ms Pahalwan was the first woman MLA from Najafgarh, Ms Gupta is the former President of the Delhi University Students’ Union, Ms Sharma won the Wazirpur seat, and Ms Roy emerged as another “giant slayer,” defeating senior AAP leader Saurabh Bharadwaj for the Greater Kailash constituency.
And there are caste equations, which the BJP has historically considered when appointing Chief Ministers; comparable delays following victories in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan in 2023 are two examples.
Four new MLAs from Scheduled Castes were elected: Raj Kumar Chauhan from Mangolpuri, Ravikant Ujjain from Trilokpuri, Ravinder Indraj Singh from Bawana, and Kailash Gangwal from Madipur.
The BJP’s amazing comeback to power in Delhi has left many wondering who would be the next Chief Minister.
Modi’s party, which had been held back in Delhi for 26 years by the Congress and subsequently the AAP, won 48 of the city’s 70 Assembly seats.
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To put this in context, the party received 11 votes in the last two Delhi elections. AAP, which was hoping to win a third consecutive term, was pulled down by assaults on party chief Arvind Kejriwal over the’sheeshmahal’ and liquor excise policy controversies, but it still won 22 seats.
To put things into context, the party won 67 and 62 seats in the 2015 and 2020 elections, respectively. The Congress lost its third election in a row.
