Delhi is all set to get a woman chief minister — a decade after the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) wrested power from Congress stalwart Sheila Dikshit — as Arvind Kejriwal proposed the name of senior AAP leader and minister Atishi as his successor in a meeting of the party’s legislators on Tuesday.
Kejriwal, who was released from jail on Friday, announced on Sunday that he would resign from the post and would only return if people give him a certificate of honesty.
Atishi, the Kalkaji lawmaker, holds key portfolios in the Kejriwal-led government such as finance, education, Public Works Department, power, revenue, law, planning, services, Information and Publicity, and vigilance.
Known to have a clean image, Atishi could appeal to the women voters in the Capital — a crucial vote bank ahead of the elections early next year.
Atishi was a key member of AAP’s Manifesto Drafting Committee for the 2013 assembly elections and played a crucial role in shaping the contours of the party during its early stages. She took oath as a minister on March 9, 2023, following a cabinet reshuffle after then deputy CM Manish Sisodia and former health minister Satyendar Jain tendered their resignations following their arrests in separate cases.
The buzz in political circles over Atishi’s increased importance in Kejriwal’s absence was strengthened when the Delhi chief minister, in a letter to L-G VK Saxena, suggested that Atishi hoist the national flag in his place during the Delhi government’s Independence Day programme.
Whether it was the Delhi water crisis or the high-profile Swati Maliwal case, Atishi led from the front as the party’s spokesperson, defending the top brass.
Born on June 8, 1981, into a Punjabi and Rajput family to professors Vijay Singh and Tripta Wahi of Delhi University, Atishi earlier used the middle name ‘Marlena’ — a portmanteau of Marx and Lenin. She decided to stop using her surname in daily life and adopt ‘Atishi’ as her name in 2018, just before the national elections.
She completed her high school education at Springdales School (Pusa Road), New Delhi. In 2001, she earned her bachelor’s degree in History from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi. She then attended Oxford University, where she earned a Chevening scholarship and finished her master’s in History in 2003. As a Rhodes scholar, she attended Magdalen College in Oxford in 2005.
It was in 2013 that she joined AAP and played a key role in leading the education reforms in Delhi. She became an advisor to Sisodia in 2015 when Kejriwal led the Delhi government.
Her influence on educational institutions can be seen in the form of improved infrastructure, establishing school management committees in accordance with the Right to Education Act, fortifying rules to prevent private schools from arbitrarily raising fees, and instituting the “happiness” curriculum.
Among the most well-educated members of the Aam Aadmi Party, which appeals to the party’s urban, middle class support base, Atishi also spent seven years in a small village in Madhya Pradesh where she got involved in organic farming and progressive education systems, a report in India Today said. She worked with several non-profit organisations there, where she met some AAP members for the first time.
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