Atishi takes oath as new Delhi CM

NEW DELHI, Sept 21: Senior AAP leader Atishi was administered oath as the eighth Chief Minister of Delhi by Lieutenant Governor V K Saxena on Saturday.

Saxena administered the oath of office and secrecy to Atishi who is now Delhi's third woman chief minister after Congress' Sheila Dikshit and BJP's Sushma Swaraj.

Among her new Council of Ministers, Saurabh Bharadwaj was the first to take oath followed by Gopal Rai, Kailash Gahlot, Imran Hussain and Mukesh Ahlawat, a new entrant in the Delhi Cabinet.

Atishi, however, will have a brief tenure in office as assembly elections in the national capital are due in February.

The swearing-in ceremony at the Raj Niwas here, which was a low-key affair, was attended by Atishi's predecessor and AAP convener Arvind Kejriwal, former deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia, and other party leaders and MLAs.

Delhi Assembly Speaker Ram Niwas Goel, Leader of Opposition Vijender Gupta, BJP MPs, including Union Minister of State Harsh Malhotra, and Delhi Police Commissioner Sanjay Arora also attended the ceremony.

South Delhi BJP MP Ramvir Singh Bidhuri said that the Atishi government should fulfil the promises made by the AAP to the public.

"The new government should give relief to the public by reducing electricity and water bills; property tax should be waived in Delhi rural. Apart from this, The Central government's Ayushman Bharat scheme should be implemented in Delhi," Bidhuri said.

The new Delhi Cabinet headed by Atishi has a long list of pending projects, schemes and new initiatives to be launched in the next few months.

She will have to hit the ground running to accelerate the city government's functioning and ensure that the flagship projects and schemes are back on track after being slowed down for months due to the imprisonment of Kejriwal.

Due to the five-month-long judicial custody of Kejriwal in the excise policy case, the AAP government had been struggling to address issues related to basic services and infrastructure that include roads, water supply and sewer, and medicines owing to the alleged fund crunch.

Atishi will have to deal with these issues during her short span of chief ministership, apart from ensuring the implementation of Kejriwal's promise to provide Rs 1,000 honorarium to eligible women in Delhi under the proposed 'Mukhyamantri Mahila Samman Yojana'.