​New line in Delhi: On Delhi’s new Chief Minister Politics & News

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s appointment of a first-time Member of the Legislative Assembly, Rekha Gupta, as the new Chief Minister of Delhi, is in line with its preference for relatively junior and fresh faces in leadership positions. Ms. Gupta has risen through the ranks of the Sangh Parivar and won Delhi University Students Union and municipal elections, before being elected to the Assembly from Shalimar Bagh. She has held positions in the party and its frontal organisations. Now, entrusted with the position of the Chief Minister, Ms. Gupta, 50, has her task cut out. She has to balance community and sectional interests within the party, command authority over the bureaucracy, and balance multiple power centres within the unique and complex governance architecture of Delhi. All levels of the government in Delhi are now under the control of the BJP, which might improve governance in the city. Ms. Gupta is the fourth woman Chief Minister of Delhi, the second woman Chief Minister of Delhi from the BJP, and the only woman among the party’s 14 Chief Ministers across India. A woman in the top post allows the BJP to deflect other factional claims in the party, and possibly boosts its popular image. Ms. Gupta also represents the trader bania community which has been a bedrock of the BJP’s politics in Delhi for decades. The new leader ticks many boxes for the party, and her success depends on how she grows into the challenging role.

The BJP has tried to balance caste and community representation in the new Council of Ministers. In Parvesh Sahib Singh Verma, the party has found someone to represent the Jat community, in Manjinder Singh Sirsa, the Sikh community, in Ashish Sood, the Punjabi Hindu community, in Ravinder Indraj Singh, Dalits, in Kapil Mishra, Brahmins, and in Pankaj Kumar Singh, the Purvanchali community. The new government has a multitude of governance challenges awaiting it. The problems of air and water pollution are issues that need a solution that go beyond the boundaries of Delhi; issues such as law and order are under the purview of the Union Home Ministry. Ms. Gupta’s experience of being a three-term municipal councillor could help, as would the fact that the neighbouring Haryana and Uttar Pradesh also have BJP governments. The BJP has returned to power in the national capital after 26 years, having offered the electorate a raft of welfare schemes to achieve that. There are the issues of unemployment and underemployment, and affordable housing and infrastructure that require the government’s attention.