Team Atishi To Retain Four Delhi Ministers, One Cabinet Addition Likely

New Delhi: Four ministers in the Arvind Kejriwal government will retain their posts as Atishi takes charge as Delhi’s new Chief Minister on Friday, sources have said. Ministers Saurabh Bharadwaj, Kailash Gahlot, Gopal Rai and Imran Hussain are likely to swear in again as the new Chief Minister takes over after Mr Kejriwal’s shock resignation Tuesday, sources said.

Dalit leader Mukesh Ahlawat, MLA from Sultan Pur Majra, may be sworn in as minister too. This would leave one ministerial post in Ms Atishi’s cabinet vacant. All the ministers will take the oath on Friday.

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) said in a statement today that Ms Atishi will take the oath on Friday. “Atishi will take oath as the Chief Minister of Delhi on September 21, other ministers will also take their oaths alongside her,” it said in a statement.

The 43-year-old MLA from Kalkaji, who has handled key portfolios in the Arvind Kejriwal government and is among the key faces of AAP, is being elevated as Chief Minister after Mr Kejriwal announced that he would resign and return to the top post only after the “people’s verdict” in the upcoming election in the national capital. The AAP convener made the shock announcement days after the Supreme Court granted him bail, six months after he was arrested in a corruption case linked to Delhi’s now-scrapped liquor policy.

Ms Atishi said she is happy with the trust Mr Kejriwal has shown in her. She said she will work to bring Mr Kejriwal back as Chief Minister.

“First of all, I would like to thank the popular CM of Delhi, AAP national convener, and my guru – Arvind Kejriwal. He gave me such a huge responsibility and trusted me for it. This can be done only in AAP, only under the leadership of Arvind Kejriwal, that a first-time politician becomes the CM of a state. I come from an ordinary family. Had I been in any other party, perhaps I would not have been given even an election ticket,” Atishi said.

Ms Atishi will be Delhi’s third woman chief minister of Delhi after Sushma Swaraj and Sheila Dikshit. An Oxford University alumnus and a Rhodes scholar, she has worked extensively in the AAP’s flagship exercise to overhaul education in Delhi’s schools.