Who will be new Delhi CM? Suspense may end as BJP calls meeting today

The wait for the new Delhi chief minister might be over on Monday (February 17) as the BJP legislative party’s meeting will be held at 3 pm, said news agency ANI.

All the 48 newly elected BJP MLAs will assemble at the Delhi BJP office to name their leader, who will be sworn in as the new chief minister of the capital. The legislature party leader will be picked more than a week after the BJP registered a thumping win in Delhi, dislodging Arvind Kejriwal’s AAP which had been in power for more than a decade.

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Grand event on cards

The delay in picking the BJP’s CM face was attributed to foreign tour of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who returned to Delhi on Saturday.

Sources said the observer for the process could be named tonight or early tomorrow morning.

The BJP, which is coming to power in the national capital after over 26 years, is planning to turn the oath ceremony of its new chief minister into a grand event.

More than 200 MPs and former MPs of the party, chief ministers and deputy chief ministers of all NDA-ruled states are expected to attend the swearing-in ceremony.

Suspense over CM pick

Multiple names are doing the rounds for the chief minister's post. Among the front-runners is Parvesh Verma, the son of the BJP's former Chief Minister Saheb Singh Verma. The other names doing the rounds include Malviya Nagar MLA Satish Upadhyay, senior party leader Vijender Gupta, newly elected Janakpuri MLA Ashish Sood and Uttam Nagar MLA Pawan Sharma.

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Sources indicated that the BJP can even pick a woman to be the next Chief Minister. Four of the BJP's new MLAs are women -- Neelam Pahalwan, Rekha Gupta, Poonam Sharma and Shikha Roy.

The party won 48 of Delhi's 70 seats, a whopping 41 more than 2020, and kept AAP, which won 62 seats that year, confined to just 22.