With only a few more hours left for announcement of Delhi chief minister, all eye are on the legislative meeting held on Wednesday. The oath-taking is scheduled for February 20 at Ramlila Maidan and the BJP has already sent out invitations for the ceremony.
The BJP Parliamentary Board will choose the observers for the legislative party meeting of the new Delhi lawmakers. Once the BJP MLAs announce the pick for Delhi chief minister, the candidate will meet Lieutenant Governor VK Saxena to form government.
Will BJP go for a surprise pick as Delhi CM?
Several names have been speculated as likely candidates for the Delhi chief minister post. The frontrunner is "giant slayer" Parvesh Verma, who unseated AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal. Rekha Gupta, one of the four women MLAs of BJP, is another name that is doing the rounds.
#WATCH | Delhi: BJP MLA-elect Rekha Gupta says, "Today's meeting (BJP legislature party meeting) will be held this evening. Tomorrow, Delhi will see the grand oath ceremony...The 'Ram Rajya' that was envisioned will take oath after 27 years. Everyone in Delhi will witness it with… pic.twitter.com/oXifh64Ac5
— ANI (@ANI) February 19, 2025
Shikha Rai, another woman MLA, who beat AAP's Saurabh Bharadwaj in Greater Kailash is also a likely contender. Former Delhi BJP chief Vijender Gupta, BJP Delhi president Virendra Sachdeva, former BJP Delhi president Satish Upadhyay and BJP leader Harish Khurana are the other contenders.
BJP MP Ravi Shankar Prasad and party's national secretary Om Prakash Dhankar appointed as central observers for electing Leader of Delhi BJP Legislature Party. pic.twitter.com/8EOkBH0V0B
— ANI (@ANI) February 19, 2025
However, going by previous assembly elections in BJP-ruled states, the saffron party is likely to pick an less-known face who is nowhere even on the margins of discussions.
Let's take Madhya Pradesh for instance. Despite serving the state for three times, Shivraj Singh Chouhan was not given a chance to lead Madhya Pradesh following the 2023 assembly elections. Instead, BJP chose Mohan Yadav from Ujjain South.
VIDEO | AAP leader Manish Sisodia (@msisodia) says, "It is strange that so many days have passed, and they (BJP) are yet to pick a leader (CM face). Whether they trust their MLAs or not.... They are not concerned about Delhi's schools, hospitals, electricity, water supply...… pic.twitter.com/dxphOnQ9uf
— Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) February 19, 2025
Likewise, with Vishnu Deo Sai, Chhattisgarh got a tribal face as its chief minister. Before the polls, all eyes were on former CM Raman Singh and Renuka Singh while Deo Sai's name was never speculated. Rising from the ranks of a village sarpanch, he became the state's first tribal CM.
Another former sarpanch who rose to the rank of chief minister was Rajasthan's Bhajanlal Sharma. The first-time MLA could be seen in the last row during the legislature party meeting that picked him as CM.
In Haryana, BJP asked CM Manohar Lal Khattar to step down ahead of the Lok Sabha and assembly elections and appointed Nayab Singh Saini as the chief minister in March 2024. Following the victory in the assembly elections in October, Saini swore in once again.
Odisha too got a new face as chief minister with Mohan Charan Majhi heading the government after BJP ended the decades-long rule of the Naveen Patnaik-led BJD last year.
Going by these trends, BJP could pull another surprise for Delhi by considering caste equations in the national capital. It could also appoint a woman as chief minister in a bid to counter AAP's former CM Atishi.
