Atishi, the leader of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the next chief minister of Delhi, will take the oath of office on Saturday, September 21, the party said on Thursday.
Atishi was supposed to take the oath at a special Assembly session on September 26–27, but the AAP eventually agreed to accept September 21 as the swearing-in date on the Lieutenant Governor of Delhi’s suggestion.
Sources claim that although the AAP had originally intended for only Atishi to take the oath, it was ultimately agreed that her council of ministers would also do so.
According to further sources, AAP leaders Gopal Rai, Kailash Gehlot, Saurabh Bharadwaj, and Imran Hussain—all of whom served as ministers in the previous Arvind Kejriwal administration—would remain in their positions and two party MLAs will be appointed to the new Cabinet.
On Tuesday, September 17, the governing AAP parliamentarians overwhelmingly chose Atishi Marlena, the only female minister in the Delhi Cabinet, to be the next chief minister of Delhi.
With only a few months till the Delhi Assembly election, party leader Arvind Kejriwal will hand off to the most portfolio-holding MLA in the AAP administration, Kalkaji.
Following Arvind Kejriwal’s announcement of his resignation in the wake of the Supreme Court’s bail decision in relation to the suspected Delhi liquor policy fraud, a number of names were put out to head the Delhi government.
Atishi, however, was the frontrunner for the top job as she had assumed a central role in the party after the arrest of Kejriwal and his former deputy Manish Sisodia in the liquor policy case.
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