Rekha Gupta, a senior Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and former mayor, has been appointed to take charge as the next Chief Minister of Delhi.
Her appointment follows a sweeping victory by BJP over the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in the recently concluded Delhi Assembly elections, which even saw the defeat of former CM and AAP supremo, Arvind Kejriwal, and ended AAP’s decade long rule in the national capital.
Political Journey
Rekha Gupta’s political journey began in Delhi University, where she joined the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the student wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). She served as the General Secretary of the Delhi University Students’ Union (DUSU) from 1995 to 1996 and was later elected its president from 1996 to 1997.
Gupta holds a master’s degree in management and arts from University of Delhi and a Bachelor of Law degree from a law college in Ghaziabad.
Gupta formally joined the BJP in 2002, quickly rising through the ranks first serving as the secretary of the Bhartiya Janata Yuva Morcha’s Delhi unit before being promoted to national secretary. Over the years, she held several key positions, including General Secretary of Delhi’s BJP’s Mahila Morcha, National Vice-Chairperson of BJP Mahila Morcha, and in-charge of the Uttar Pradesh Mahila Morcha. She was also a national executive member of the BJP.
Gupta then deftly transitioned into electoral politics by winning the 2007 Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) elections from the North Pitampura ward. She was re-elected in 2012 and went on to serve as the vice-chairperson of the standing committee, the top financial decision-making body of the MCD.
Gupta was later appointed as the the Mayor of the South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC), gaining administrative experience at a larger level. However, in the 2022 MCD elections, she lost to AAP’s Shelly Oberoi.
Chief Ministerial Bid
Gupta first contested in the Delhi Assembly elections in 2015 from her home constituency of Shalimar Bagh but suffered defeat at the hands of AAP’s Bandana Kumari by a significant margin of nearly 30,000 votes. She ran again in 2020, narrowing the margin of defeat, and finally secured a landslide victory in the recent 2025 elections by defeating Kumari by 29,595 votes.
Following BJP’s Delhi victory, Gupta reportedly emerged as a frontrunner for the Chief Minister’s post, over candidates like New Delhi Constituency winner Parvesh Verma, Vijendra Gupta, Ashish Sood, Shikha Roy, Manoj Tiwari and others. Ultimately, the party chose Gupta in a legislative meeting, making the fourth woman CM of Delhi after BJP’s own Sushma Swaraj, Congress’ Sheila Dikshit and AAP’s interim CM Atishi.
Manbilas Singh is a talented writer and journalist who focuses on the finer details in every story and values integrity above everything. A self-proclaimed sleuth, he strives to expose the fine print behind seemingly mundane activities and aims to uncover the truth that is hidden from the general public. In his time away from work, he is a music aficionado and a nerd who revels in video & board games, books and Formula 1.
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