First Time MLA Rekha Gupta was sworn in as Delhi chief minister along with six ministers in a grand show of strength full of colour and spectacle to mark the Bharatiya Janata Party’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 National Democratic Alliance leaders.
Gupta is Delhi’s fourth woman chief minister after her party’s Sushma Swaraj, the Congress’ Sheila Dikshit and Aam Aadmi Party’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 Trinamool Congress 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 Lieutenant Governor V K Saxena.
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.
