NEW DELHI, Feb 20: Debutant legislator Rekha Gupta was sworn in as Delhi chief minister along with six ministers on Thursday in a grand show of strength full of colour and spectacle to mark the BJP’s return to power in the city after more than 26 years.
The ceremony at the sprawling Ramlila Ground was attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the top BJP brass and NDA leaders. Gupta is Delhi’s fourth woman chief minister after her party’s Sushma Swaraj, the Congress’ Sheila Dikshit and AAP’s Atishi. The 50-year-old MLA from Shalimar Bagh, who took charge of her office at the Delhi Secretariat in the afternoon, is also the only woman in the NDA team of chief ministers and the second in the country after TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal.
The former student leader presides over an all-male cabinet that includes giant slayer Parvesh Verma, who defeated Arvind Kejriwal in the elections, Hindutva poster boy Kapil Mishra and the BJP’s Sikh face Manjinder Singh Sirsa. Besides, Ashish Sood, Ravinder Indraj Singh and Pankaj Singh were also administered the oath of office by Lt Governor V K Saxena.
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All the ministers took oath in Hindi, except for Sirsa who did so in Punjabi.
Congratulating the new chief minister, Modi expressed confidence that she will work for the city’s development with full vigour.
“She has risen from the grassroots, being active in campus politics, state organisation, municipal administration and now MLA as well as Chief Minister…,” he said.
About 50,000 people crammed into the historic ground, which has seen many a rally and protest through the decades, festooned with marigold flowers and buntings. There was dance, music and drumbeats with many waving BJP flags, chanting “Jai Shri Ram”, “Modi, Modi” and a bunch of enthusiastic supporters singing “Ram Ji Ko Keh Dena, Jai Arya Ram”.
The high on optics event was attended by chief ministers of states ruled by the BJP and its NDA allies — Maharashtra’s Devendra Fadnavis, Andhra Pradesh’s Chandrababu Naidu, Goa’s Pramod Sawant, Haryana’s Nayab Singh Saini and Meghalaya’s Conrad Sangma.
Union ministers, including Amit Shah, party chief JP Nadda, Rajnath Singh and Hardeep Puri, were there too to mark the occasion of the party adding one more electoral win to its kitty.
Uttar Pradesh deputy chief ministers Keshav Prasad Maurya and Brajesh Pathak, and Andhra Pradesh’s Pawan Kalyan were present too.
After the ceremony, the new cabinet and other dignitaries headed for lunch at a luxury hotel in the city.
The coming days will likely be politically fraught with the AAP — which cedes control of the city after 10 successive years, first under Arvind Kejriwal and then Atishi — and BJP facing off on various issues.
On Thursday, ahead of her swearing in, Gupta assured that her government will fulfill its promise of providing Rs 2,500 monthly assistance to eligible women and added that the AAP would be held accountable for its actions during its 10-year rule.
The first installment of the monthly support would be credited to eligible women’s accounts by International Women’s Day on March 8, Gupta told reporters outside her residence. Ahead of the polls, the BJP’s manifesto aimed to outmatch the AAP’s announcement of Rs 2,100 monthly support if it came to power.
“They will have to give an account for each and every penny to the people,” she said about the AAP.
“Fulfilling the dream of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the responsibility of all 48 BJP MLAs in the capital,” she added.
Among the first ports of call of Delhi’s new government will be the Yamuna, BJP leaders said.
The cleaning of the Yamuna was a major emotive issue in the run-up to the election. While the BJP cornered the AAP over failing to clean the river in its decade-long rule, Kejriwal alleged that the BJP-led Haryana government was polluting the river with “poisonous ammonia”.
In his speech during the BJP’s victory celebrations after the results were declared on February 8, the prime minister had reaffirmed his commitment to cleaning the river.
The challenges before the Gupta-led government are many.
They will also have to fulfil key election promises, continue welfare schemes of the previous government, and fix the city’s pollution and infrastructure issues. It will have to do all this while keeping a check on the financial health of the national capital.
Another major challenge for the BJP will be to continue welfare schemes initiated by the AAP government, including free electricity up to 200 units, free water connection and free bus rides for women, among others.
While the BJP has assured voters that these benefits will not be discontinued, AAP leaders have questioned the party’s long-term commitment.
Gupta is a law graduate from Delhi University with strong RSS roots. She entered politics as an Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) member in 1992. Born in Haryana’s Julana, she has a 32-year association with the RSS and is a former Delhi civic councillor. (PTI)
