Atishi Marlena Singh named 'Delhi CM' after Arvind Kejriwal's exit

NEW DELHI: Delhi minister Atishi Marlena Singh will take over as the new chief minister of the country's capital territory New Delhi after Arvind Kejriwal's resignation, the ruling Aam Aadmi Party announced on Tuesday.

The announcement was made by AAP chief Kejriwal himself in a meeting with AAP lawmakers in the capital, AL Jazeera reported.

The development comes after incumbent CM Kejriwal on Sunday — a day after securing bail from the country's Supreme Court in a graft case — announced that he will step down from the said post.

Announcing his resignation as chief minister at a meeting with AAP workers, the politico said he would only return to the post if people certified his honesty by voting for him in the upcoming Delhi election. He called on the election commission to bring forward the Delhi election to November, from February 2025.

The politician is a fierce critic of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and a former anti-corruption crusader whose decade-old Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) quickly rose to mainstream politics, although its clout is relatively smaller compared to older opposition parties.

The new CM nominee, 43, is a key member of the AAP and has held several portfolios in the city government including those of finance and education.

She is currently the only woman minister in the Delhi cabinet and holds the most portfolios in the AAP government, reported India Today.

Who is Delhi's new CM nominee?

Atishi entered politics in 2013 when she joined the AAP and was later part the of Jal Satyagraha protests in 2015, reported the Economic Times.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, she went up against former Indian cricketer and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate Gautam Gambhir, but lost to the latter by a margin exceeding 450,000 votes.

However, she contested from South Delhi's Kalkaji constituency in the 2020 Delhi Legislative Assembly polls and won against another BJP candidate and managed to win by more than 10,000 votes.

Holding a bachelor's and master's degree in History, Atishi is a Chevening scholar who also attended Oxford University's Magdalen College.

During her time in the AAP government, the CM nominee contributed significantly to Delhi's education sector via various initiatives such as improving government schools, bolstering regulations against arbitrary fee hikes by private schools and introducing a "happiness" curriculum, among other decisions.