Atishi took oath as Delhi chief minister along with her new council of ministers during a ceremony at Raj Niwas on Saturday after Arvind Kejriwal resigned from the top post. The new council of ministers announced by the party includes newly inducted Sultanpur Mazra MLA Mukesh Ahlawat, besides ministers Gopal Rai, Kailash Gehlot, Saurabh Bharadwaj and Imran Hussain. Atishi’s Saurabh Bharadwaj took oath as minister. Atishi became the 17th woman chief minister of the country and the third woman chief minister of the national capital after late Sushma Swaraj and late Sheila Dixit.
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Rai, Gehlot, Bhardwaj and Hussain have been ministers in the outgoing Kejriwal government. Atishi’s tenure will be brief as Delhi is due to go for assembly elections in February next year. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has given Atishi the top post at a crucial juncture as the party is not only hoping to return to power in the Delhi assembly elections early next year, but also wants the Delhi government to work fast on pending policies and schemes related to public welfare. This is why Atishi will have to work hard after assuming office and work at a fast pace to ensure the implementation of other schemes like Mukhyamantri Mahila Samman Yojana, Electric Vehicle Policy 2.0 and doorstep delivery of services.
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After the resignation of Sisodia and Satyendra Jain, Atishi joined the Delhi government along with Saurabh Bhardwaj. Atishi (43) joined the Kejriwal government heading 13 key departments including Finance, Revenue, Education and Public Works Department. Atishi joined the AAP in 2013 and worked behind the scenes as an advisor to the government on education policies. But she entered electoral politics in 2019, when she contested the Lok Sabha elections against BJP’s Gautam Gambhir from East Delhi. But, she lost the election. Before joining active politics, Atishi dropped her surname Marlena, which was a symbol of Marx and Lenin, as she wanted her political affiliation not to be misunderstood. In 2020, Atishi contested the assembly elections and became an MLA from Kalkaji constituency. Atishi’s parents Vijay Singh and Tripta Wahi were professors of Delhi University.
Gopal Rai, a two-time MLA from north-east Delhi’s Babarpur area, has been retained in the new council of ministers headed by Chief Minister-designate Atishi. Rai is a long-time associate of party convenor Arvind Kejriwal and one of the founding members of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). Rai, the Purvanchal face of AAP, hails from Mau district in eastern Uttar Pradesh. As a student of Lucknow University, he was active in student politics and campaigned on issues of corruption and crime. He was shot, which left him partially paralyzed. He was involved in the ‘India Against Corruption’ movement led by senior social activist Anna Hazare and Kejriwal in 2011.
Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader and three-time MLA from Greater Kailash seat Saurabh Bhardwaj has also got a place in the new council of ministers headed by nominated Chief Minister Atishi. Bhardwaj, who came into politics after studying engineering, was also the minister of important departments like Transport and Environment in the 49-day Arvind Kejriwal government in December 2013. Bhardwaj (44) is known for strongly defending AAP and making sharp attacks on BJP as the party’s national spokesperson. One of the reasons for his fame is also his attempt to prove the possibility of EVM tampering through ‘dummy machine’ in the Delhi Assembly in 2017. After the victory of AAP in the 2020 elections, he again became a minister in March 2023 in the third term of the Kejriwal government. He was handling the departments of Health, Urban Development, Tourism, Art Culture, Industry and Flood Control in the Kejriwal government.
Kailash Gehlot, who was part of the outgoing cabinet led by Arvind Kejriwal, is said to be a confidant of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief and was among the contenders for the chief minister’s post along with Atishi. Fifty-year-old MLA Gehlot comes from a rural background and is a prominent Jat leader of the AAP, who won the Najafgarh constituency twice in 2015 and 2020. He had won by a narrow margin of 1,555 votes in 2015, but in 2020 his victory margin was 6,231 votes. He was inducted into the cabinet after Kapil Mishra’s resignation in 2017.
