Atishi has 5 months to prove herself as Delhi CM, what will she do?

There really was no suspense about Arvind Kejriwal’s successor as Delhi CM. Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) legislators on Tuesday (September 17) chose 43-year-old Oxford scholar Atishi, who held the city’s finance and education ministries, as the Capital’s eighth CM. Formalities followed. Kejriwal submitted his resignation to Delhi lieutenant governor VK Saxena, and Atishi staked her claim to form government. Then, AAP made it official with a statement: “Now, Atishi steps up to lead Delhi till the upcoming elections, carrying the weight of both CM Arvind Kejriwal’s vision and the national capital’s future.”Mark the words “till the upcoming elections”. Don’t for a moment assume that Atishi is anything more than a stand-in, a proxy, although the Opposition prefers to call her a “puppet”. As she left Raj Niwas on Tuesday, Atishi told reporters: “The people of Delhi have resolved to make Arvind Kejriwal chief minister again. Till elections are held, I will be looking after Delhi.”What happens now?AAP functionaries said an Assembly session will be convened on September 26 and 27, and the new government under Atishi will prove its majority. This is a mere formality, considering AAP’s brute majority of 59 legislators in a 70-member House despite three MLAs quitting the party in the past five months.Atishi will be the second youngest Delhi CM after Chaudhary Brahm Prakash (1952-55), who was just shy of 34 when he was sworn in. She will also be the third woman CM of the Capital, after Sushma Swaraj and Sheila Dikshit.Her name was proposed by Kejriwal at the meeting of the AAP legislative party, which was held at his camp office on Flagstaff Road. It was unanimously accepted by all legislators. medium113450896Burden of expectationsIn October 1998, amid the onion crisis, BJP had appointed Sushma Swaraj as Delhi’s chief minister. She had three months to revive the party’s flagging fortunes or take the blame for its fall. Atishi has five. It’s nobody’s case that AAP is on a weak wicket in Delhi, but after 10 years in government, there is the minor matter of incumbency, and the string of ED and CBI cases are bound to have sullied its hem. So, as she “took charge”, Atishi declared her sole objective is to make Arvind Kejriwal Delhi’s CM again: “The people of Delhi, AAP MLAs and I, as CM, will now work together with only one objective till the Assembly elections are held in the next few months — that we have to make Arvind Kejriwal the chief minister of Delhi again.”That’s a big task, considering she’s not a political “heavyweight” yet. Her first electoral contest, the Lok Sabha polls in 2019 from East Delhi, resulted in a loss to cricketer Gautam Gambhir of BJP. In 2020, she contested from the Kalkaji Assembly seat and won.“I want to thank my guru, Delhi’s popular CM Arvind Kejriwal, for reposing faith in me by entrusting me with such a big responsibility,” she said on Tuesday. “It can only happen in AAP under Kejriwalji’s leadership that a first-time politician becomes the chief minister of a state. Had I been in any other party, I wouldn’t have even got an election ticket, but Kejriwalji trusted me, made me an MLA, made me a minister and today has given me the responsibility of becoming CM.” medium113451042 Her Plan B is simpleAtishi is AAP’s ‘Plan B’, but she needs a Plan B of her own, and it appears she will be blaming BJP for whatever goes wrong between now and the elections. She said BJP would continue to “conspire against the people of Delhi through its lieutenant governor to stop free electricity and free medicines in hospitals” for the people of the city. “I know they will try to close the mohalla clinics and ruin the government schools. So, for the next few months, as long as I have this responsibility as CM, I will try to protect the people of Delhi and run the government of Delhi under the guidance of Arvind Kejriwalji,” Atishi said.Plan A needs much workPlan A is more complicated because several new schemes and policies are in the pipeline, and Atishi will not only have to coordinate with the bureaucracy to expedite their approval, but also get the LG’s nod to roll them out before the elections.According to an AAP functionary, among the prominent schemes that the Delhi government would like to roll out ahead of the Assembly polls is ‘Mahila Samman Nidhi Yojana’, which promises financial assistance of Rs 1,000 to women aged above 18 years. Atishi had announced this scheme while presenting the Delhi budget for 2024-25. At the time, the government had estimated that eligible women would start getting the money in their bank accounts October onwards.Sources said Delhi’s women and child department, which is working on the policy document, has been told to finalise the draft and get it vetted by the departments concerned. It will then be placed before the state Cabinet, and, if approved, sent to the LG for his nod and notification.Several other policies, including Delhi Electronic System Design, Manufacturing, and Refurbishment Policy 2022-27; Industrial and Economic Development Policy 2023–33; Water Bill Settlement Scheme; Delhi Start-Up Policy; Dilli Bazaar Portal; Cloud Kitchen Policy; and Food Truck Policy, many of which were announced in the 2022-23 budget as a means to provide employment, are also awaiting Cabinet approval.Sources said the AAP government’s flagship scheme for doorstep delivery of services has been defunct and requires to be reworked. medium113451530Transfers and postingsBy virtue of being CM, Atishi will also be required to chair the National Capital Civil Services Authority (NCCSA), which decides the transfer and posting of Group A officers and disciplinary action against officials. With several posts of secretaries and senior officials vacant, and many officials awaiting posting, Atishi will have to call a meeting of NCCSA.Once the new CM and her Cabinet take over, several political positions, such as Delhi Jal Board vice chairman and a vacant post of member in DDA, will have to be filled along with the naming of the heads and members of commissions, corporations and statutory bodies. Atishi will also be involved in hectic meetings to speed up pending work on welfare schemes and infrastructure-related projects related to roads, water supply, sewerage, pollution, disbursal of subsidies, and wage revision of workers in the unorganised sector.The biggest challenge for Atishi, however, will be to establish healthy relations with the LG, given that his approval is mandatory for governance and works related to welfare and development.She’s been lucky so farFrom first-time MLA to CM, Atishi’s rise in AAP has been meteoric. That’s entirely because both her mentors – Arvind Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia – spent many months in jail. A fierce Kejriwal loyalist, Atishi started out as an adviser in the office of the Delhi education minister. After deputy CM Sisodia’s arrest in the Delhi excise policy case last year, she was inducted as a minister and soon had 13 key departments – the highest for any Delhi minister – with her.Will her graph rise further, or plateau, or fall, the next few months will decide.