Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and first-time MLA Rekha Gupta took oath as Chief Minister of Delhi at Ramlila Ground on February 20. Six ministers in her cabinet also took oath at the mega event, which was attended by the party’s top brass, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Lieutenant Governor (L-G) of Delhi VK Saxena administered the oath of office to the chief minister and ministers. The six ministers who took oath included Parvesh Sahib Singh, Ashish Sood, Manjinder Singh Sirsa, Ravinder Indraj Singh, Kapil Mishra and Pankaj Kumar Singh.
The swearing-in was a high-profile event, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Union Cabinet, and Chief Ministers from NDA-ruled various states in attendance. Among the attendees were Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, Maharashtra Deputy CMs Eknath Shinde and Ajit Pawar, Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis, Union Ministers Amit Shah and Rajnath Singh.
Gupta won the Shalimar Bagh Assembly Constituency, defeating AAP’s Bandana Kumari by a margin of 29,595 votes in the 2025 Delhi Assembly Election. She has become the ninth chief minister of Delhi. She is the fourth women CM of Delhi after Sushma Swaraj, Sheila Dikhsit and Atishi.
After taking oath, Rekha is now the only chief minister of any NDA-ruled state in teh country and second women chief minister of the country after West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee.
The highly anticipated decision to appoint Gupta as CM was taken at the BJP Legislature Party meeting held at the party’s Delhi unit office on Wednesday evening. Earlier, the BJP named former Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad and its national secretary Om Prakash Dhankar as the party’s central observers for the election of its Delhi legislature party leader.
The BJP defeated AAP by bagging 48 seats in the 70-member assembly in recently-held assembly polls. The AAP won just 22 seats. With Rekha Gupta, the BJP gets a CM in Delhi after a gap of 27 years.The last party leader to be chief minister of the national capital was the late Sushma Swaraj in 1998.
Born on July 19, 1974, in Julana, Haryana, Rekha Gupta was influenced by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) from a young age. She studied education at Delhi University, earning a Bachelor of Commerce and advanced degrees in management and arts.