Arvind Kejriwal writes to LG Anil Baijal staking claim to form government in Delhi; oath ceremony on February 16

New Delhi: Aam Aadmi Party Chief Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday evening wrote to Lieutenant Governor (LG) Anil Baijal staking claim to form the government in Delhi. Kejriwal, who made it a hat-trick to the Chief Minister`s office, will take oath on February 16 at the Ramleela Maidan -- similar to the last two times.

Delhi Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Ranbir Singh today presented Constitution notification with the list of the newly-elected MLAs to LG Anil Baijal.

According to sources, all the faces in the previous cabinet will be repeated this time around, but the portfolios may be shuffled.

In the previous term of the AAP government, the Kejriwal cabinet had Manish Sisodia, Satyendar Jain, Gopal Rai, Imran Hussain, Rajendra Pal Gautam and Kailash Gahlot besides Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.

In the recently concluded Assembly election, AAP won 62 seats, while the BJP got eight seats and the Congress and others drew a blank. 

Arvind Kejriwal won the New Delhi seat for a third time by a margin of 21,697 votes, while Sisoida bagged the Patpadganj seat with a margin of 3,207 votes. 

Among other Cabinet ministers, Rajendra Pal Gautam retained the Seemapuri seat with a margin of 56,108 votes and Gopal Rai was re-elected to Babarpur with a margin of 33,062 votes.

Imran Hussain won from Ballimaran with a margin of 36,172 votes and the margin of Satyendar Jain`s victory was 7,592 votes.

Meanwhile, BJP president JP Nadda today chaired a meeting of senior party functionaries at the party headquarters to discuss organisational elections and other issues. Present in the meeting were Ram Madhav, Muralidhar Rao, BL Santhosh, Bhupendra Yadav and Arun Singh among others. 

The meeting took place in the wake of BJP's debacle in Delhi Assembly election, as the party was restricted to single-digit seats despite launching a high-voltage election campaign spearheaded by Union Home Minister Amit Shah.

Notably, the Congress failed to open its account second time in a row in the national capital.