Rekha Gupta: From the wings to the centre

The slogan ‘Sabko Dekha, aa gayi Rekha’ (We have seen many, now Rekha has arrived), reverberated outside Rekha Gupta’s home in Shalimar Bagh on February 19, as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) affirmed its faith in her as the next Chief Minister of Delhi. The first-time MLA was sworn in along with her council of Ministers the very next day at the Ramlila Maidan.

A leader with grassroots links, Ms. Gupta will oversee a new era of the BJP in the capital. The saffron party has been in the Opposition in Delhi for nearly 26 years. Hours after the BJP emerged victorious on February 8, the immediate question that came up was who would be the party’s pick for the top job. There were several front-runners, including sons of former Chief Ministers, former Delhi BJP presidents, and MLAs who stood against the Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) tide. But Ms. Gupta, 50, emerged as the eventual answer.

While the pick surprised many, an insider in the BJP said the party has always rewarded those who have stood quietly in the waiting wings, not making a fuss about the responsibilities and duties given to them. Ms. Gupta is a prime example of exactly that. She stood as the Mayoral Candidate of the party in Corporation polls in 2023 against the AAP’s Shelly Oberoi, despite knowing that the numbers were stacked against her.

Her grooming in politics began in 1992 with the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the student wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, while she was a student at Daulat Ram College, Delhi University. She went on to serve as the Delhi University Student Union president in 1996. According to BJP leaders, during this time, she worked closely with J.P. Nadda, the current party president who was then the in-charge of the Delhi wing of the Yuva Morcha, and Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.

“Rekha ji has been active in politics from the 1990s. She has brought in change, she has worked on issues of women empowerment, encouraged parents to send their girls to school, and is a role model for many young women, hoping to enter politics,” a councillor at the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), who had worked with Ms. Gupta, said.

Clad in a saffron saree on February 20, Ms. Gupta folded her hands greeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi, other senior BJP leaders, and the crowd who had thronged the Ramlila Maidan to see her swearing-in as Delhi’s fourth woman Chief Minister. “While the overt reasons to pick her included the fact that the BJP was looking to project a women face and someone from the Vaishya background, which is a sizeable population in the capital, she is someone who has worked in the background of the party for years, holding personality developmental courses for first-time women councillors during her first term, among other initiatives,” said a party insider.

Non-objectionable face

Ms. Gupta is also a non-objectionable face within the Delhi unit, as she has not sided with any factions and comes with strong ground connections, say party workers, explaining that the leader has a good sense of what the public wants. In 2014, she initiated a party membership drive on DTC (Delhi Transport Corporation) buses.

A senior BJP leader who was part of this campaign said, “we boarded buses from the terminus near Shivaji Stadium and spent whole days on the move, connecting with citizens, and asking them to join the party”.

Born on July 19, 1974, in Nandgarh village, Haryana, Rekha Gupta moved to Delhi with her family at the age of two. She formally joined the party in 2002. Her father was an employee of the State Bank of India. She served as the national secretary of the BJP’s Yuva Morcha and made her debut in electoral politics in 2007 as an MCD Councillor.

Since then, Ms. Gupta has seen a steady rise within the BJP. She was made a National Executive Member of the party in 2012, and National General Secretary, Mahila Morcha, the women’s wing of the party, in 2013. However, the journey has not always been smooth, as she lost Assembly elections in 2015 and 2020 from Shalimar Bagh constituency. However, in 2025, Ms. Gupta became a legislator for the first time from Shalimar Bagh, defeating incumbent Bandana Kumari of the AAP, with a majority of 29,595 votes.

Ms. Gupta has been lauded for her grassroot links with people, especially party workers. “After the 2020 Assembly polls, I was made an observer to appoint a district president from her area as the party was revamping its organisational structure after the loss. During my survey of the area, we found that approximately 87% karyakartas (party workers) voted for her. I had never seen such numbers before, but when I reached out to her to discuss this, she gave three names of people that can be chosen instead of hers,” said a Lok Sabha member from Delhi.

“When I asked her why not her, she said, ‘I have already been awarded by the party many times, a fresh face should take the reins now instead’,” the MP told The Hindu.

BJP’s promise

When Ms. Gupta was named the Chief Minister, a video from 2022 resurfaced, where she is seen breaking a microphone inside the MCD house as AAP and BJP members were clashing. Additionally, many objected to her old tweets about the AAP, and a statement from her, referring to students of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) as ‘freeloaders’ when they had protested over hikes in hostel fees. She then encouraged people to protest against the university, stating, “I think that such a university should not exist in the country and should be stopped immediately”.

But that’s a different era. Now that she is the Chief Minister of Delhi, tall tasks are awaiting her. With the capital facing several challenges, and many in her Cabinet being senior to her within the party, Ms. Gupta has her job cut out. Immediately after the swearing-in ceremony, accompanied by party leaders, including State BJP in-charge Baijayant Panda and Delhi BJP president Virendra Sachdeva, Ms. Gupta told reporters that her government will not waste a single day in fulfilling the promises made by the party to Delhi — a ‘Viksit Delhi for a Viksit Bharat’. For Chief Minister Gupta, ‘Kaam hi Pehchan’ (Work is her identity).