Rekha Gupta, BJP’s pick for Delhi chief minister, meets LG; oath tomorrow

The BJP ended the AAP’s decade-long rule in Delhi, winning 48 seats in the 70-member assembly, reduciing AAP to 22 seats

NEW DELHI: First-time legislator Rekha Gupta who won the Shalimar Bagh seat will be the next Delhi chief minister, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said on Wednesday evening after a meeting of the Delhi BJP’s legislative party.

BJP’s Rekha Gupta arrives at the party office to attend BJP legislative party meeting in New Delhi on Wednesday (ANI)

Gupta, who has been thrice elected to the municipal corporation, was elected leader of the BJP legislative party at its meeting at the state unit headquarters on Wednesday evening. She later met Delhi Lieutenant Governor Vinai Kumar Saxena and formally staked claim to form a government in the national capital.

Senior BJP leaders, Lok Sabha MP Ravi Shankar Prasad and the party’s national secretary Om Prakash Dhankar, who were appointed as central observers by the BJP parliamentary board for Wednesday’s meeting, were present. They also met some legislators including Parvesh Verma, who was among those contenders for the top post, before the meeting of legislators.

Gupta will be the fourth woman chief minister of Delhi after Sushma Swaraj, Sheila Dikshit and Atishi.

In a post on X, Gupta said, “I express my heartfelt gratitude to all the top leadership for trusting me and entrusting me with the responsibility of the post of Chief Minister. This trust and support of yours has given me new energy and inspiration. I pledge that I will work with full honesty, integrity and dedication for the welfare, empowerment and overall development of every citizen of Delhi. I am fully committed to this important opportunity to take Delhi to new heights.”

She will take oath at the ceremony at Ramlila Maidan, which can accommodate around 30,000 people, on February 20, in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and chief ministers of 19 National Democratic Alliance-ruled states, people familiar with the matter said.

The BJP broke its 27-year-old jinx to storm to power in the Capital with a two-thirds majority, trouncing AAP in the year’s first electoral contest. The BJP won 48 out of Delhi’s 70 seats on the back of a grounded campaign, and reduced the ruling AAP to only 22 seats.

The victory in Delhi was important for the BJP as it was the first major electoral battle for 2025 and fortified the party’s claim as the national political hegemon after the setback of the 2024 general elections when it failed to secure a full majority on its own.

With an unexpected win in Haryana, a landslide victory in Maharashtra, and now a two-thirds majority in Delhi, the BJP managed to wrest the political momentum and is now set to use this to push through big-ticket policy proposals and set the political agenda for the year.