Delhi’s wait for a ‘full-time’ functional Chief Minister ended on Tuesday after Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader and incumbent Minister in Delhi cabinet Atishi staked claim to lead the NCT Government shortly after Arvind Kejriwal resigned from the post he kept for almost 11 years including five months as CM from Tihar jail. Kejriwal is now released on bail in the liquor policy case.
Chief Minister-designate Atishi handed over the letter of support from the AAP MLAs to Lieutenant-Governor Vinai Kumar Saxena and informed that she was chosen by the party as his successor. Kejriwal resigned on a day when the Prime Minister Narendra Modi turned 74 years and completed 100 days in his third term of the office.
Atishi will be the third woman Chief Minister of Delhi after Sushma Swaraj and Sheila Dikshit. Dikshit was Delhi’s longest-serving Chief Minister, who held the office for 15 years from 1998 to 2013, while Swaraj’s tenure lasted 52 days in 1998.
Atishi (43) will be Delhi’s youngest Chief Minister and is also set to become the second current woman Chief Minister in the country after West Bengal’s Mamata Banerjee. With a woman at the helm of the Delhi Government, AAP would be looking at consolidating itself among the women’s constituency that Kejriwal has been assiduously reaching out to.
Oath taking ceremony will take place before the Assembly session on September 26-27. Kejriwal extended good wishes to his successor whom he earlier in the day recommended as the Leader of the ruling AAP’s legislative party and next Chief Minister of Delhi.
Addressing media after the meeting with LG, Atishi said, “We have staked claim to form a new Government. I will protect the interests of Delhi people.”
The decision to elect Atishi, 43, as the AAP legislative party leader was taken at the Chief Minister house after a discussion with all party MLAs. Led by the AAP convener and Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, the party’s senior leadership remained in a huddle throughout the day on Monday which concluded with discussions among members of the party’s highest decision-making body, the Political Affairs Committee (PAC).
At the meeting of AAP MLAs, party Leader Dilip Pandey proposed that Kejriwal decide on the Chief Minister face. When the AAP national convener proposed Atishi’s name, all AAP MLAs stood up and accepted it and Atishi was elected Leader of the legislature party, sources said.
Hours after being unanimously chosen to become the Chief Minister of Delhi, addressing reporters, an emotional Atishi said it was a moment mixed with joy as well as “extreme sadness” as Kejirwal, the popular CM, is going to resign.
“It’s possible only in the Aam Aadmi Party and under the leadership of Arvind Kejriwal that a first-time politician has become a Chief Minister. I come from an ordinary family and perhaps would not get even a poll ticket if I were in any other party,” she said.
Atishi said Kejriwal trusted her and made her an MLA, then a Minister and now the Chief Minister of Delhi. “I am happy that Arvind Kejriwal has shown so much trust on me, but more than that I am sad because my elder brother Arvind Kejriwal is resigning today,” she said.
She thanked her “guru” Arvind Kejriwal on being given the “big responsibility” of succeeding him as the Chief Minister of Delhi and said she would work under his “guidance” to protect people’s interests from the BJP’s obstructions.
The need to induct two new members in the Cabinet has arisen since Kejriwal’s resignation will create one more vacancy on the seven-member body - which has to be one-tenth of the total number of Assembly seats in the capital, that is 70 - following his stepping down. One of the seven berths has remained vacant ever since Social Welfare Minister, and the sole SC face in the cabinet, Raaj Kumar Anand, resigned from his post as well as the party in April.
Atishi currently holds the most number of portfolios in the Delhi Cabinet, serving as the Minister for Finance, Water, Education, Public Works, Power, Revenue, Planning, Services, Law, Vigilance, and other key departments.
