New Delhi: With all of its ministers and youth leaders having won elections, a problem of plenty now stares the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) as it sits down to formulate its next cabinet. The party bagged 53.57% of the votes and won 62 out of 70 seats in the Delhi assembly elections.
The problem of accommodating dynamic young leaders when senior leaders, already occupying high positions in the government, stake another strong claim is not new to Delhi. This longstanding problem arises because under Article 239AA of the Indian constitution, the number of ministers cannot exceed 10% of seats in the Delhi assembly. Hence, there can be no more than seven ministers in the Delhi government.
All seven ministers retain their seats
This time around, all the seven sitting ministers have won their seats. Chief minister Arvind Kejriwal won the New Delhi constituency for the third successive time while deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia, after trailing the BJP candidate for hours, sharply recovered his lead to retain Patparganj.
Health and home minister Satyendra Jain from Shakur Basti and labour and development minister Gopal Rai from Babarpur are two other senior government functionaries who won their seats.
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The other three ministers to sail through were water and SC/ST minister Rajendra Pal Gautam from Seemapuri, law and transport minister Kailash Gahlot from Najafgarh, and food and civil supplies minister Imran Hussain from Ballimaran.
With Kejriwal and Sisodia occupying the top two posts, and Gopal Rai and Satyendra Jain being near certain of retaining their seats, there remain only three slots for all the other winning legislators of the party to eye.
One seat each may be kept for a Muslim, SC
There too, one ministerial berth in Delhi has traditionally been kept by parties for a Muslim. With AAP winning all five seats where Muslims constitute over 40% of the population, it remains to be seen if Imran Hussain will be replaced or not.
One serious contender for the post this time would be Okhla legislator Amanatullah Khan. This time he has scored the second-biggest victory for his party by defeating Braham Singh of the BJP by 71,827 votes. The largest victory margin was of AAP candidate Sanjeev Jha, who won by 88,158 votes from Burari.
With AAP also winning all the 10 seats reserved for Scheduled Castes in Delhi, it would be interesting to see if it would replace its SC/ST minister Gautam with one of the other candidates, if it decides to retain one slot in the cabinet for a member of the reserved category.
That effectively leaves just one open slot on the cabinet for the numerous young and bright leaders of the party who have won.
Youth leaders make a strong case for cabinet berth
One of the most articulate and popular faces among them is Atishi. The Oxford-educated leader was one of the architects of the education reforms in her capacity as an advisor to Sisodia. A member of the Political Affairs Committee of the party, she has now won from the Kalkaji constituency.
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Similarly, Raghav Chadha, who won from the Rajinder Nagar constituency, is a practising chartered accountant who is also the national treasurer and spokesperson for AAP.
Saurabh Bharadwaj is another young face of the party. He was a minister in the 49-day government that was formed after the 2013 win and shot to prominence after he demonstrated, in the Delhi assembly, how electronic voting machines could be hacked. The claim was denied by the Election Commission.
Another claimant for a cabinet position this time is Dilip Pandey, the convenor of Delhi unit of AAP, who won from Timarpur by 24,144 votes. A Poorvanchali leader, his claim to a ministerial berth is likely to be strong since AAP is now nurturing national ambitions and would like to send out a strong message in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.