NEW DELHI: AAP legislators Atishi and Saurabh Bharadwaj were sworn in as cabinet members on Thursday in the presence of Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Lieutenant Governor V K Saxena. The governor administered the oath to the office to the new ministers at the Auditorium at Raj Niwas.
Atishi and Saurabh replace former deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia and former health minister Satyendar Jain who resigned last week. Sisodia held 18 of the 33 government portfolios.
While Atishi- MLA from Kaloja constituency has been given the Education, PWD, Power, and Tourism portfolios, Bharadwaj has been allotted the Health, Urban Development, Water, and Industries portfolios. Meanwhile, Transport Minister Kailash Gahlot has been given the Health and Finance portfolios.
Atishi has been working closely with Sisodia in the education sector, and had contested the 2019 Lok Sabha polls from the East Delhi constituency and lost to BJP’s Gautam Gambhir.
Saurabh is the party’s national spokesperson and was also a minister during the first stint of the AAP government.
President Droupadi Murmu on Tuesday accepted the resignations of the former ministers who are currently lodged in Tihar Jail in connection with the now-scrapped Delhi Excise Policy 2021-22 case.