New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Celebration (BJP) has picked first-time MLA and three-term former councillor Rekha Gupta as its chief minister in Delhi, ending days of hypothesis after the get together’s victory within the lately concluded Meeting polls.
Upon assuming workplace Thursday, Gupta (50) will turn out to be Delhi’s fourth girl chief minister after Sushma Swaraj, Sheila Dikshit and Atishi.
Two central observers from the BJP, Ravi Shankar Prasad and O.P. Dhankar, had been current through the Delhi BJP legislative get together assembly the place Gupta’s identify was proposed and seconded by MLAs. Senior BJP leaders together with Gupta later met Delhi L-G V.Okay. Saxena to stake declare to type the federal government. A lot earlier than Gupta’s identify was formally introduced, her relations had began distributing sweets in anticipation of fine information.
She is going to take oath on the Ramlila Maidan Thursday, within the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and chief ministers of 19 NDA-ruled states.
A lawyer by career, Gupta hails from the Baniya group.
Gupta was elected to the municipal council from Pitampura North ward thrice. She is at the moment nationwide vice-president of BJP’s Mahila Morcha. In accordance with a Delhi BJP chief, Gupta was on the bottom when the get together’s state management was engaged on the Laadli Behna scheme in Madhya Pradesh. Schemes centred round girls was additionally one of many key ballot guarantees of the BJP within the run-up to the Delhi Meeting elections.
It introduced Rs 2,500 per thirty days to eligible girls, one-time monetary help of Rs 21,000 for pregnant girls and better old-age help.
Gupta gained the Meeting elections from Shalimar Bagh with 68,200 votes, forward of her nearest rival Bandana Kumari of the AAP who secured 38,605 votes.
Gupta was in control of the ladies’s wing of the BJP in Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, and performed an important function in reaching out to girls voters forward of elections, stated one other BJP chief who didn’t want to be named. Many leaders inside the BJP described her as an ‘glorious orator’ who has served on ‘virtually all organisational posts’.
A primary-time MLA, she had unsuccessfully contested Delhi Meeting elections twice. In 2022, when she was elected a councillor the get together additionally named her its mayoral candidate in opposition to Shelly Oberoi of the AAP.
Gupta began her political journey with the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP). She grew to become president of Delhi College College students’ Union (DUSU) within the yr 1996-1997, and was first elected as a councilor from Pitampura North in 2007.
Not like the previous when the BJP declared chief ministerial candidates in Delhi previous to voting day, the get together went to the polls this time with out projecting any CM face, banking solely on the attraction of PM Modi. In earlier Meeting elections, the get together had named Kiran Bedi and former Union minister Harsh Vardhan as its chief ministerial candidates.
This time it managed to stage a comeback in Delhi after 27 years, profitable 48 of Delhi’s 70 Meeting seats and decreasing the AAP to a mere 22 seats. Modi set the tone for BJP’s marketing campaign as he coined the time period ‘aapda (catastrophe)’ for AAP, citing allegations of “corruption” and “lack of imaginative and prescient”. The election additionally noticed the return of ‘Modi ki assure’ on posters.
In parliamentary elections, BJP has had a profitable run in Delhi up to now, profitable the entire Capital’s seven Lok Sabha seats in 2014, 2019 and 2024.
Beneath assault over arrests of its high leaders, together with former chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on corruption prices, the AAP was fast to launch its marketing campaign and even launched its candidate listing forward of each BJP and Congress, giving its MLA hopefuls an early benefit.
It additionally dropped 20 sitting MLAs, together with outstanding figures like former Delhi convenor Dilip Pandey, and reshuffled candidates in a number of different seats, together with former Deputy CM Manish Sisodia. It maintained that these choices had been primarily based purely on “exhausting work” and “efficiency”. The BJP additionally centered on corruption as considered one of its main ballot planks because it focused Kejriwal for constructing a “sheesh mahal”. The reference was to the supposedly opulent renovation of the official bungalow Kejriwal occupied as Delhi chief minister.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
Additionally Learn: Delhi ballot consequence isn’t simply Model Kejriwal dropping sheen. BJP stepping out of Modi shadow too
