Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal will meet Lieutenant Governor VK Saxena at 4:30 pm on Tuesday and submit his resignation The AAP has held a series of meetings to discuss possible candidates for the post of chief minister, a day before the meeting of party MLAs and is set to finalise Arvind Kejriwal’s successor.
Kejriwal, while addressing his party workers on Sunday, announced his decision to resign in two days. He said he will not sit on the chief minister’s chair until the public vouches for his integrity and expressed his intention to undergo an “agni pariksha” (fire test) after coming out of jail.
He made the announcement two days after he walked out of Delhi’s Tihar jail on bail from the Supreme Court in an alleged corruption case registered by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) linked to the Delhi excise policy matter. The AAP national convenor’s decision has triggered speculation about his possible successor. According to reports, the likely successors include sitting Delhi MLAs such as Atishi, Saurabh Bharadwaj, Kailash Gehlot, Gopal Rai and Imran Hussain. Some leaders have said that the Dalit leader could be appointed the next chief minister, though they did not name anyone in particular.
The current term of the Delhi Assembly is set to end on February 11, 2025. The last assembly election in Delhi was held on February 8, 2020. In the 70-member assembly, the AAP got 62 seats and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) 8 seats. Among the leading candidates for the post of chief minister, Atishi is a frontrunner due to her handling several key departments including education, finance, revenue and law. Arvind Kejriwal took oath as the chief minister on February 16, which was the third time since 2013 when he won the election for the first time.