Chosen with care

Each appointment to the Delhi cabinet has been made with an eye on upcoming polls, especially in Bihar, West Bengal and Punjab

- PRATUL SHARMA

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 uppercaste 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.