Incumbent Delhi Chief Minister, Arvind Kejriwal has announced that he will be resigning from his post on Tuesday. The Aam Aadmi Party Political Affairs Committee, the party’s highest decision-making body, is scheduled to convene on Monday at 5 pm for the same. The next Chief Minister of Delhi will be decided in the meeting.
The decision came as Kejriwal has been the subject of a number of controversies recently and has even been arrested by the CBI in an excise policy scam case. Though he has managed to get bail, the cases will drag on. Keeping the situation in mind he has decided to resign from his post as the Chief Minister of Delhi.
Kejriwal framed his decision as an opportunity for voters to judge his administration’s honesty. In his announcement, Kejriwal emphasized that he and Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia would only return to their posts if people give them a “certificate of honesty”. The Delhi Legislative Assembly polls are now scheduled for February 2025. Kejriwal has asked for elections in Delhi to be advanced to November and be held along with polls in Maharashtra.
Meanwhile speculation is growing rife on who will replace the AAP supremo, with many names in the hat. Atishi is one of the more prominent candidates, serving as a senior minister in the Delhi government, she has held a number of portfolios, apart from that she also has a strong media presence. Another potential candidate is Saurabh Bharadwaj, the party’s national spokesperson and three time MLA. Raghav Chadha is another, the young politician is a key spokesperson and one of the most well known members of the party.
Senior party leaders Sanjay Singh and Manish Sisodia could also have been in the fray, but both are embroiled in their own respective court cases, much like Kejriwal, which would in all likelihood rule them out of the race. Kailash Gehlot, Gopal Rai and Imran Hussain could be others also in the running. But the candidate who seems most likely to get the approval of the AAP political affairs commitee, and the forerunner for the post, seems to be none other than the wife of the AAP chief, Sunita Kejriwal.
Since the arrest of Arvind Kejriwal, Sunita Kejriwal has been more or less leading the party. Sunita is a former Indian Revenue Services (IRS) officer and in her husbands absence, Sunita has given the official public statements, held political rallies and is even leading the party’s campaign in the upcoming Haryana elections.
The BJP seems to have already sensed the developing situation, BJP national spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla said, “The AAP national convenor’s announcement is a part of his plan to make his wife Sunita Kejriwal chief minister. Arvind Kejriwal has done a PhD on how to make a virtue out of necessity. The emotional and PR cards that he is playing is aimed at creating a Manmohan Singh-like system in Delhi as (former Congress president) Sonia Gandhi did.”.
Now it remains to be seen whether Arvind Kejriwal will back one of his trusted deputies or will instead go for the aforementioned option, placing his wife to rule in his stead. It will also be crucial to note, what will be the impact of this decision on the upcoming polls in Delhi. The image of the Aam Aadmi Party has been hit considerably in the past few months. Aside from the lingering Swati Maliwal controversy, many of the AAP ministers have been jailed in the past few years, and the chief Arvind Kejriwal is himself out on bail. In a few months it will be clear whether the Delhi public still retains trust in the Kejriwal led AAP or has had enough of the party’s constant controversies and antics.