AAP national convener Arvind Kejriwal will take the oath as Delhi chief minister for the third time along with his cabinet at the Ramlila ground at 10 am today.
Campaigning on its work in health, education, water and electricity sector, Kejriwal’s party achieved a massive mandate for the second time in the Delhi Assembly election, where it won 62 of the 70 seats. Polling was held on 8 February and the results were declared on 11 February.
According to an official notification, President Ram Nath Kovind has also appointed six AAP MLAs as ministers of the Delhi government following the advice of the chief minister-designate.
The six ministers who will take oath along with Kejriwal on Sunday are: Manish Sisodia, Satyender Jain, Gopal Rai, Kailash Gehlot, Imran Hussain and Rajendra Gautam.
Sisodia said that around 50 people from different walks of life, including teachers, bus marshalls, architects of the Signature Bridge and family of firefighters who lost their lives, among others, will share the stage with Kejriwal.
Though Kejriwal extended an invitation for the ceremony to Prime Minister Narendra Modi as well, he is unlikely to attend it as he is scheduled to visit his parliamentary constituency Varanasi on Sunday.
According to reports, the swearing-in ceremony is also unlikely to be attended by any Opposition leaders or chief ministers of other non-BJP leaders.
The ceremony is scheduled at the Ramlila Ground on Sunday and traffic regulation will be in place in the area from 8 am to 2 pm, the Delhi Police said.
Kejriwal calls meet
According to party functionaries, Kejriwal on Saturday called a dinner meeting of his cabinet ministers to discuss a roadmap for Delhi’s development. Kejriwal is likely to discuss with his ministers initiatives that need to be prioritised and action items for the Delhi government in the coming three months.
The meeting will also focus on developing a roadmap to make Delhi a global city, they said.
‘Circular is dictatorial’
The oath-taking ceremony has already been embroiled into a controversy over a Directorate of Education circular making it “compulsory” for government school teachers to attend Kejriwal’s oath-taking ceremony as Delhi chief minister.
In a tweet, Delhi BJP spokesperson Praveen Shankar Kapoor said, “The Aam Aadmi Party, which has won elections by making announcement of freebies, has enough MLAs but not public support.”
“With the fear of people not attending the swearing-in ceremony, the government has issued a diktat to 30,000 teachers to mandatorily attend,” he added.
Delhi Congress’s chief spokesperson Mukesh Sharma took to Twitter to say, “A government order has been issued asking government school teachers to reach at the Arvind Kejriwal government’s oath-taking ceremony. It is clear that power is being ‘misused’ to gather a crowd for the swearing-in ceremony.”
Sharma urged Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal to take cognisance of it.
Newly-elected BJP MLA Vijender Gupta wrote to Kejriwal on Saturday requesting him to withdraw the circular.
Gupta, Leader of Opposition in the previous Assembly, called the Friday’s circular “dictatorial” that shattered his belief that Kejriwal’s focus after coming back to power would be on governance and strengthening democratic ethos.
“By virtue of the order, 15,000 teachers and officials will have to attend the oath ceremony,” Gupta wrote in his letter to Kejriwal.
Gupta, who has been re-elected from Rohini constituency, said he would attend Kejriwal’s oath taking ceremony.
Reacting to Gupta’s objection, the vice-chairman of Delhi Dialogue and Development Commission, Jasmine Shah, said teachers and principals were “architects” of Delhi’s transformation in the past five years and they “deserved to be invited” for the swearing-in ceremony.
“When did BJP last think of teachers in at the centre of your ‘vikas‘ (development) model? Never did, never will,” Shah tweeted.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) bagged the eight seats in the 70-member Assembly while the Congress drew a blank for the second consecutive time.