Rekha Gupta, a first-time MLA from Shalimar Bagh, has been chosen as Delhi’s chief minister, making her the fourth woman to hold the role. Gupta’s grassroots origins, ties to the influential Bania group, and the BJP’s dedication to women’s empowerment all played important roles in her nomination.

The BJP’s Rekha Gupta and her Cabinet members’ oath-taking ceremony in Delhi conducted with ‘strong’ security precautions. To preserve law and order, some 25,000 police officers and 15 paramilitary companies would be deployed. Snipers on high-rise buildings and CCTV cameras with AI-based facial recognition will be installed in strategic locations. PM Narendra Modi has attended, as will other key BJP figures.

The BJP on Wednesday appointed Rekha Gupta, a first-time MLA from Shalimar Bagh, as Delhi’s chief minister, surprising party stalwarts and contenders.

The 50-year-old have been sworn in at noon today (February 20) in a lavish event at the city’s iconic Ramlila Maidan. It has gathered approximately 50,000 people, including prominent BJP leaders and chief ministers from party-ruled states.

She is the fourth woman to hold the top job in Delhi, after Sushma Swaraj (BJP), Sheila Dikshit (Congress), and Atishi (AAP). She will lead the BJP’s government in the capital, 27 years after Swaraj did.

After being elected leader of the assembly party, Gupta went to Raj Niwas to lay her claim to form the government before Lieutenant Governor V K Saxena. Before the central leadership made its decision, MLAs Parvesh Verma, Satish Upadhyay, and Vijender Gupta suggested her name as a strong candidate for the position. Gupta’s appointment is consistent with the BJP’s recent tendency of picking relatively low-profile politicians as chief ministers, a pattern witnessed in other states.

Party officials cited three significant aspects that worked in her favor: she is a woman, she belongs to the influential Bania group, which played an important part in the BJP’s triumph, and she has a solid grassroots foundation.

Gupta has held various crucial posts in her nearly three-decade political career, while keeping a low profile. Even after the BJP’s first assembly election victory in 27 years, she was not among the front-runners for the CM’s position. Her appointment as parliamentary party leader surprised even members of the party. She will take the oath as Delhi’s fourth woman chief minister on Thursday at Ramlila Maidan.

Gupta was born in 1974 in Nandgarh village, Jind district, Haryana. She came to Delhi with her family in 1976 when her father joined the State Bank of India. She attended Daulat Ram College and became interested in student politics through the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), which is the student branch of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.

In 1996, she was elected president of the Delhi University Students’ Union (DUSU), making her the first former DUSU officer to become Delhi’s Chief Minister. Following college, she worked at the grassroots level until making her first significant political breakthrough in 2007, when she won the municipal election for the Uttari Pitampura ward. Despite the Municipal Corporation of Delhi’s 2012 trifurcation, she won a second consecutive term as a councillor in North Delhi. Recognizing her services, the BJP named her as chairwoman of the education committee.

During her tenure, she implemented significant modifications in municipal schools, including as new student uniforms and the construction of permanent buildings for schools that had previously been housed in tents.

In the 2015 assembly elections, Gupta ran from Shalimar Bagh but was defeated by AAP candidate Bandana Kumari. When the BJP opted not to renominate incumbent councillors in 2017, she took a brief break from electoral activity. However, she made a comeback in 2022, gaining a municipal councillor seat from Shalimar Bagh (B) in the re-unified MCD. She later ran in the 2023 mayoral election against AAP candidate Shelly Oberoi, but was defeated due to low turnout.

With the BJP determined to retake power in Delhi, the party fielded Gupta in the assembly elections, where she made a strong comeback, defeating the AAP’s sitting MLA and her old rival, Bandana Kumari, by a massive margin of over 29,000 votes.