Rekha Gupta’s selection as Delhi’s chief minister ticks multiple political boxes. The 50-year-old, who is the only serving woman chief minister from the Bharatiya Janata Party, is a first-time MLA, represents the party’s core upper-caste vote bank and reinforces its outreach to women.
Along with Gupta, the six cabinet picks, too, reflect the BJP’s effort to build a new leadership in the national capital, where it waited nearly three decades to reclaim power. The move gives a peek into the BJP’s strategy in nurturing new leadership and sends a broader national political message, particularly in light of the state elections due in the next 15 months.
Gupta was an Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad activist, a former Delhi University Students’ Union (DUSU) president and then a Delhi municipal corporation councillor. These platforms have been serving as BJP-RSS training grounds, nurturing leaders to later assume prominent roles. And, while former DUSU presidents like Arun Jaitley, Vijay Goel and Ajay Maken have gone on to become Union ministers, this is the first time a DUSU president has become a chief minister.
This also indicates a trend―other serving chief ministers who were active in student politics include Mamata Banerjee (West Bengal), Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu (Himachal Pradesh), Pinarayi Vijayan (Kerala), Himanta Biswa Sarma (Assam), Pushkar Singh Dhami (Uttarakhand), Devendra Fadnavis (Maharashtra), Mohan Yadav (Madhya Pradesh) and Bhajan Lal Sharma (Rajasthan). As many of the BJP’s picks were active in campus politics, it is evident where the party is developing its next line of regional leaders.
Most of the BJP’s chief ministers in its bastions come through the RSS route. During election campaigns, all of them are tasked with campaigning, as it happened in Delhi. Dhami, Sharma, Fadnavis and Yadav all held rallies and corner meetings addressing specific demographic groups. This has been a strategy to woo migrants. During the last Telangana polls, for instance, BJP chief ministers and leaders held meetings for their state-specific cultural groups, leading to a 7 per cent rise in vote share and an increase in seats from one to eight.
The Bhagwant Mann government is under pressure after the AAP’s loss in Delhi and the BJP is already working with the 2027 Punjab polls in mind | Rahul R Pattom
From Delhi, the BJP’s focus now shifts to three crucial states―Bihar, West Bengal and Punjab―where it eyes significant growth. The momentum gained in Odisha, Haryana, Maharashtra and now Delhi is likely to help the BJP’s campaign in these states.
If Gupta’s elevation is aimed at consolidating the support of women voters―who have been instrumental in bringing the party to power in several states―the cabinet selections also balance caste and regional considerations to ensure the BJP’s diverse voter base remains engaged. Each appointment has been carefully made to appeal to different demographic segments, both in Delhi and other states.
What makes Delhi unique is that its highly mobile migrant population tends to take the city’s development narrative back to their native states, helping parties expand their reach. This trend benefitted the Aam Aadmi Party and, before that, the Congress under Sheila Dikshit. The question now is: can Gupta and her six ministers achieve the same?
There had already been outreach towards the Jats―Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar hails from the community. Now, Delhi Cabinet Minister Parvesh Verma is another leader from the community, which has significant presence in Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan, and is known for its political influence.
For its Punjab outreach, Manjinder Singh Sirsa, the Sikh face of the BJP in Delhi, has been given a cabinet post and is already making his presence felt in the border state, which goes to polls in 2027. After the AAP’s loss in Delhi, the Bhagwant Mann government in Punjab is under severe pressure to improve governance and fulfil its promises. Sirsa, who was previously with the Akali Dal, has played a key role in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s outreach to the Sikh community. With the BJP increasing its vote share in Punjab, he could help the party bring in more community leaders and shed its image as a Hindu and an urban party.
Distinct challenges: Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. In Bihar, the BJP has to manage its alliance while increasing its seat share | PTI
The focus will now switch to how the AAP sustains its government in Punjab, where the Congress remains at loggerheads with it. Notably, the BJP has rewarded Ashish Sood, who previously served as in-charge of the BJP Goa unit and as co-in-charge of the Jammu and Kashmir unit, with a cabinet berth in Delhi. He is Punjabi and known for his organisational skills. Like Gupta, he, too, has served as municipal councillor and DUSU president.
In Bihar, the BJP faces a dual challenge―managing its allies while increasing its seat share in the assembly. Its Bihar, allies are already concerned about what happened in Maharashtra―Eknath Shinde had to step aside for Fadnavis. The BJP has more seats in Bihar, but lacked a credible replacement for Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.
The party’s Bihar-specific outreach is reflected in the selection of three members of the Delhi cabinet―Ravinder Indraj Singh, a dalit leader, Kapil Mishra, a hindutva face catering to hardcore supporters, and Pankaj Singh, who hails from Bihar.
“The message is not just for the electorate but also for the party cadre―that hard work is rewarded,” said a party leader, who requested anonymity. “The cabinet is not just an act of balancing but a matter of faith. It’s an extension of our ideology.”
Party spokesperson Guru Prakash emphasised that the BJP has followed Modi’s mantra of Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas. “The goal is to make everyone a relevant stakeholder―people across different segments, communities, men and women, youngsters and experienced hands,” he said. “Even the selection of the speaker―a very senior MLA, Vijender Gupta―has been remarkable. This isn’t new; the BJP has always followed this approach.”
The BJP has seen a decline in support from dalit and other marginalised communities because of the aggressive caste-focused strategies of opposition parties. To counter this, it has ensured adequate representation for these communities.
The BJP continues to struggle against Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s entrenched support in West Bengal | Salil Bera
Bihar’s deeply entrenched caste politics provide the party with some advantages, but converting this into electoral gains requires effective social engineering.
The real test of the BJP’s momentum in Delhi will be felt in West Bengal, as the party takes on Mamata, the state’s longest serving chief minister and a formidable woman leader with a strong cadre and a loyal base among women voters.
As seen in Delhi and other recent assembly elections, focusing on local issues rather than national narratives has significantly benefitted the BJP in state polls. However, the party continues to struggle against Mamata’s entrenched support, amid internal divisions in its state unit.
The similarity between Delhi and West Bengal extends to how the ruling party has engaged with the Centre, with the Trinamool Congress, like the AAP, often refusing to implement Central schemes. The BJP is now positioning its outreach to highlight that if Delhi benefits from Central schemes, so should Bengal. It may also highlight its woman chief minister in Delhi and the Rs2,500 scheme for women in the capital.
Beyond the electoral victory and political messaging through the Delhi cabinet, what will resonate most across the country is the new state government’s performance. Whether the BJP presents a new Delhi model of governance or falls short will shape its future election campaigns.