Chief Minister-designate Rekha Gupta and her cabinet will be sworn in at Ramlila Maidan this afternoon, in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. This marks the BJP’s return to power in Delhi after a gap of 26 years.
Gupta, 50, was elected as the Leader of the House in the newly formed 8th Delhi Assembly during a BJP legislature party meeting on Wednesday. Lieutenant Governor V K Saxena invited her to form the government after she staked her claim at Raj Niwas. She will be the 9th Chief Minister of Delhi.
Along with Gupta, six MLAs will be sworn in as ministers: Parvesh Verma, Ashish Sood, Pankaj Singh, Manjinder Singh Sirsa, Kapil Mishra, and Ravinder Indraj.
The new cabinet is expected to hold its first meeting later in the day, where it may launch key initiatives like the Mahila Samriddhi Yojna, offering ₹2,500 per month to eligible women, and the Ayushman Bharat health scheme, according to party sources.
The BJP secured a decisive victory in the February 5 Assembly elections, winning 48 out of 70 seats, ending the decade-long rule of Arvind Kejriwal’s AAP. The party had last governed Delhi between 1993 and 1998.
Gupta, a first-time MLA from Shalimar Bagh, has a strong RSS background and has risen through the BJP ranks. A former Delhi University Students' Union (DUSU) president and civic body councillor, she will be the fourth woman CM of Delhi after Sushma Swaraj, Sheila Dikshit, and Atishi.
She is also the only woman Chief Minister currently in all BJP-ruled states. Gupta won the Shalimar Bagh seat by defeating AAP’s Bandana Kumari with a margin of over 29,000 votes.
