First-time lawmaker Rekha Gupta took oath as the ninth chief minister of Delhi in a grand ceremony at the Ramlila Maidan on Thursday, marking the return of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to power in the national capital for the first time in nearly three decades.
Six other legislators took oath as ministers – Jat face Parvesh Sahib Singh Verma (New Delhi) who defeated Arvind Kejriwal, Punjabi face Ashish Sood (Janakpuri), Sikh face Manjinder Singh Sirsa (Rajouri Garden), Dalit face Ravinder Indraj Singh (Bawana), Purvanchali Brahmin face Kapil Mishra (Karawal Nagar), and Purvanchali Thakur face Pankaj Singh (Vikaspuri). The CM and all ministers took oath in Hindi while Sirsa was sworn-in in Punjabi.
Gupta, the legislator from Shalimar Bagh in west Delhi, spent a busy day – first taking oath in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a ceremony that doubled as a show of strength for the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), then taking charge as CM at the secretariat, then at an evening aarti at the Yamuna ghat, and finally, presiding over the first meeting of the new Delhi cabinet.
“We will continuously work towards the mission of Viksit Delhi, and we will fulfil all the promises that we have made,” said Gupta, 50.
The CM chaired the meeting of the first cabinet on Thursday evening at Delhi secretariat. The cabinet considered and approved the implementing the Ayushman Bharat Yojana in Delhi; and also approved the tabling of 14 CAG reports during the first session of the Delhi assembly which will be convened soon.
“The cabinet passed Ayushman Bharat Yojana which was stopped by the previous government. It will be implemented as earliest after the necessary formalities are done. The Ayushman Bharat Yojana and the scheme for over 70 years elderly have been approved,” Gupta said at Delhi secretariat.
In the evening, the list of portfolios showed Gupta keeping some key departments including services, finance, revenue, women and child development, land and building, information and public relations, vigilance and planning for herself.
Verma was put in charge of PWD, water, irrigation and flood control; Sirsa was given industries, environment, food; Indraj was given social welfare and others; Mishra was given labour, art, culture and language, tourism and others; Sood was given home, power, urban development, education, higher education; and Singh was given health, law, legislative affairs, and housing.
Lieutenant governor VK Saxena administered the oath of office and secrecy to the CM and the six ministers at the Ramlila Maidan, the site of the anti-corruption agitation in 2011 that deposed the then Congress government and acted as the cradle of the AAP. Former chief minister Arvind Kejriwal also took oath at the Ramlila Maidan in December 2013.
After Gupta, Verma was the second person to take oath. The ceremony was billed as a show of strength for the NDA, and was attended by Modi, Union home minister Amit Shah, defence minister Rajnath Singh and health minister and BJP chief JP Nadda, Andhra Pradesh CM Chandrababu Naidu, Union minister Dharmendra Pradhan, Rajasthan CM Bhajan Lal Sharma, Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis, deputy CM Ajit Pawar, Goa CM Pramod Sawant, deputy CM Pawan Kalyan, Bihar deputy CM Vijay Kumar Sinha, and Rajasthan deputy CM Prem Chand Bairwa were among those present.
Modi said the new CM of Delhi will work with “full vigour” for Delhi’s development.
“Congratulations to Smt. Rekha Gupta ji on taking oath as Delhi’s chief minister. She has risen from the grassroots, being active in campus politics, state organisation, municipal administration and now MLA as well as chief minister. I am confident she will work for Delhi’s development with full vigour. My best wishes to her for a fruitful tenure,” he posted on X.
A sea of saffron engulfed the sprawling Ramlila Maidan with thousands of BJP supporters gathering from early in the morning. The venue was adorned with marigold flowers and betel leaves, while enthusiastic supporters chanted “Jai Shri Ram”.
Thousands of people from different states and backgrounds gathered to witness the ceremony. Among them were auto drivers, sanitation workers, women, gig workers and slum residents.
Amid the festive atmosphere, musicians played the shehnai and dhol, filling the air with patriotic melodies. The stage was divided into three parts. A separate stage was set up for singers close to the main stage where singers sang bhajans eliciting enthusiastic response from the crowd. The oath taking ceremony took place on the central stage; the stage to its right was occupied by MPs and political leaders, and the one to its left by spiritual leaders.
In the evening, Gupta performed a Yamuna Aarti along with her cabinet colleagues at Vasudev Ghat. She said: “While doing the aarti of Maa Yamuna, we reiterated our resolution to clean the river and restore it to its glory. Cleaning the Yamuna is our priority and we will use the needed resources for it.”
“Following the path of respected Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi ji’s ‘Sabka Sath Sabka Vikas’, with the support of all of you, in the coming times, we will write such a glorious chapter of public service, good governance and development in Delhi, through which the dream of developed Delhi will come true,” Gupta said on X.
“We are committed to fulfilling the guarantee given to Delhi by the successful Prime Minister Narendra Modi ji as soon as possible. Every single day of our government is dedicated to fulfilling the pledge of developed Delhi,” she added.
Gupta’s announcement as the CM on Wednesday evening culminated 11 days of suspense after the BJP won an impressive victory in the February 5 assembly elections, trouncing the Aam Aadmi Party.
A long-time member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) who entered student politics in 1992 as a member of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) in Daulat Ram College, Gupta will become the fourth woman chief minister of Delhi – after Sushma Swaraj, Sheila Dikshit and Atishi. She is also the first woman chief minister named by the BJP since Anandiben Patel took charge of Gujarat in 2014.
Gupta’s name appeared to be a nod towards the key demographic of women’s vote that moved significantly away from the AAP in the 2025 polls. It also helped represent the middle-class, another crucial vote base that ensured the BJP end its 27-year-long wait for power in the Capital. When she takes charge, Gupta will become only the second sitting woman chief minister, apart from West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee.
Born in 1974 in a middle-class family in Haryana’s Jind, Gupta moved to Delhi as a toddler. Her father, Jai Bhagwan Jindal, was the branch manager at the State Bank of India branch in Pitampura. She completed her B Com from Daulat Ram College in 1995 and her LLB from Chaudhary Charan Singh University in 2022.
Her political career began in student politics in 1994 as a secretary of the Daulat Ram College students’ union. She was elected as a councillor from North Pitampura in 2007 and again in 2012, when she served as the education committee chief and deputy chair of the standing committee. Over the last 15 years, she was active in the women’s wing of the party, rising to the national vice president’s position in 2021. She unsuccessfully fought the 2015 and 2020 assembly elections from Shalimar Bagh. She also lost a mayoral election to the AAP’s Shelly Oberoi in February 2023.
In 2025, Gupta defeated AAP candidate Bandana Kumari in the Shalimar Bagh seat by a margin of more than 29,000 votes. “When she was canvassing for the elections, she said she’ll change the landscape of this area. I am confident that she will, especially now, because she is from this area and knows it well,” said Ramphal Prajapati, a grocery store owner in Shalimar Bagh.