New Delhi:

Rekha Gupta took oath Thursday afternoon as Chief Minister of Delhi – the fourth woman and fourth Bharatiya Janata Party leader to hold that post. Her nomination late last night followed 12 days of suspense and speculation over whom the BJP might pick to follow Arvind Kejriwal and Atishi.

The answer, when it came, was unexpected.

Ms Gupta, the ex-President of the Delhi University Students’ Union and a first-time MLA from Shalimar Bagh in northwest Delhi, was not the name the BJP was expected to put forward.

She was on the shortlist, yes. Sources did tell NDTV Ms Gupta and all three of the party’s women MLAs were being considered, but all of the talk was about Parvesh Verma, the ‘giant-slayer’.

No-Go For Parvesh Verma

After all, Mr Verma is a two-time Delhi Lok Sabha MP and is the son of former BJP Chief Minister Saheb Singh Verma. He also defeated Arvind Kejriwal for the New Delhi seat, and two of the last three Delhi Chief Ministers – Mr Kejriwal and the Congress’ Sheila Dikshit – won that constituency.

And there were other names seen as ahead of Ms Gupta, including Satish Upadhyay, the party’s Brahmin face, and Vijender Gupta, who was earlier the Leader of the Opposition.

READ | BJP’s Delhi ‘Wapsi‘ Complete, Focus Now On Chief Minister Question

By contrast, Ms Gupta – though one of Delhi’s longest-serving councillors – was a low-key figure.

And it was a surprise, even to her. Ms Gupta told NDTV that when she left her home Wednesday evening, to attend a MLAs meet, she had no idea she would return as Chief Minister.

READ | “Knew When Parvesh Verma…”: Rekha Gupta On Chief Minister News

But the BJP’s pick shouldn’t be a surprise because the party has sprung a few of them in the past few years, most notably in 2023, when it picked three unfancied individuals as chief ministers.

BJP’s 2024 ‘Gameplan’

There were nine full Assembly elections in 2023. The BJP (and/or its allies) won five – Tripura, Nagaland, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, and Rajasthan.

Of these, NDPP leader Neiphiu Rio, an ally of the BJP, remained Chief Minister in Nagaland and the party held on to Manik Saha in Tripura. For the other three, two of which (Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh) were flipped from the Congress, the BJP sprang a hat-trick of surprises.

And this is the point – big names were ignored then – Vasundhara Raje in Rajasthan, Raman Singh in Chhattisgarh, and Shivraj Singh Chouhan in Madhya Pradesh – as they were this week, in Delhi.

Instead, Bhajan Lal Sharma was installed in Rajasthan, Vishnu Deo Sai in Chhattisgarh, and Mohan Yadav in Madhya Pradesh. Sources told NDTV this was a calibrated effort by the BJP to balance caste-class demands ahead of the Lok Sabha election, which came six months later.

NDTV Explains | BJP’s 2024 Gameplan Behind Hattrick Of Heartland Surprises

For example, in Chhattisgarh, a state where tribal communities form 32 per cent of the population, the BJP opted for a tribal leader. Madhya Pradesh got a Chief Minister from the Yadav community and Brahmin and Dalit deputies. And Rajasthan got a Brahmin leader and Rajput and Dalit deputies.

Vishnu Deo Sai (R) and Mohan Yadav, the BJP’s surprise picks for Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh (File).

Before and after 2023, i.e., in 2022 and 2024 the BJP opted to retain Chief Ministers, including keeping Nayab Saini in Haryana and restoring Devendra Fadnavis in Maharashtra.

BJP’s Delhi Move

The BJP selecting Rekha Gupta, sources told NDTV, reflects the same balancing act.

The party wanted a Vaishya face as its leader because its first three Chief Ministers – Madan Lal Khurana, Saheb Singh, and Sushma Swaraj – represented the Punjabi, Jat, and Brahmin communities. To that end, Vijender Gupta was an option, but Rekha Gupta ticked a box he couldn’t – gender.

READ | Rekha Gupta Sworn In As Delhi Chief Minister With PM On Stage

Ms Gupta meant the BJP could point to a Vaishya and a woman as its leader.

Over To Bihar?

Ms Gupta’s selection could also be an indication of how things might play out in Bihar, where elections are due this year. At present, Nitish Kumar is Chief Minister even if his JDU is a minority partner. Sources have confirmed the BJP will fight with him as the chief ministerial candidate.

However, should the saffron party come back to power and keep, or even extend its lead over Nitish Kumar, a change is possible.

In that case, the question of who could succeed him arises, and it could be the BJP looks to spring a surprise here too, ignoring senior leaders like ex-Deputy Chief Minister Tarkishore Prasad and ex-Union Ministers Syed Shahnawaz Hussain and Ravi Shankar Prasad in favour of another left-field choice.

Who that might be (assuming, of course, that Nitish Kumar does not remain) will be revealed then.

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New Delhi:

Delhi’s new Chief Minister Rekha Gupta’s old posts on social media in which she took swipes at former chief minister Arvind Kejriwal are being cited by her followers as well as critics since Wednesday evening, when the confirmation of her name for the top post came.

While supporters of Ms Gupta, 50, a first-time MLA from the BJP, shared the old posts to mock Mr Kejriwal’s defeat in the Delhi election after the Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) power run of 10 years, the supporters of the AAP chief drew attention to what they described as inappropriate language used by Ms Gupta in attacking her political rival.

BJP supporters have indicated on social media that Ms Gupta’s old posts showed she has been a fierce and consistent critic of Mr Kejriwal and the previous AAP government in Delhi. She used a variety of memes to mock the AAP chief.

YouTuber Tushar Gupta, who runs the policy and politics channel ‘The Atom’, in a post on X said Ms Gupta’s old posts are being regurgitated by “haters” because she took on Mr Kejriwal when the AAP was seen to be popular in the national capital after sweeping the assembly elections twice.

“People are hating on Rekha Gupta, the new Chief Minister of Delhi, picking up her old tweets. They don’t care for the language, they just hate the fact that someone was answering back to Arvind Kejriwal and Co in the language they best understand,” the YouTuber said.

Some AAP supporters shared screenshots of Ms Gupta’s old posts criticising Mr Kejriwal with memes on X (formerly Twitter), which have been deleted.

Trinamool Congress MP Sagarika Ghose was one of the Opposition leaders who posted about Ms Gupta’s old tweets.

“Disturbing reports on social media on Delhi’s new Chief Minister Rekha Gupta’s past abusive language and rowdyism. What a far cry from the hard working and gracious Sheila Dixit and the articulate parliamentarian Sushma Swaraj. But this is the ‘new’ BJP where vicious abuse and vitriol have been normalised,” Ms Ghose alleged.

The X user, Nyaksha, responded to the Trinamool MP, “The dynamic language was rightly used against corrupt ministers. And with that intent, it still sounds better than ‘hamba hamba, bamba bamba, khamba khamba.”

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee made the “humba humba” comment in February 2021 aimed at her former colleagues who joined the BJP. The Bengal chief minister made the comments in reference to the clip clops that a bovine animal makes as it walks.

The BJP returned to power in Delhi after 26 years. Some of the first steps it will take include fulfilling key election promises, continuing welfare schemes of the previous AAP government, finding a solution to Delhi’s pollution and infrastructure issues, and cleaning the River Yamuna.

The party won 48 seats in the 70-member assembly, putting a full stop on the AAP’s decade-long Delhi march. The AAP won 22 seats, a catastrophic decline from its strong position five years ago.