Meteoric rise of Atishi from minister by chance to Delhi’s second youngest CM
Kanwar Inder Singh/ royalpatiala.in News/ September 17,2024
Atishi Marlena, 43 years, MLA from Delhi’s Kalkaji Assembly constituency has been appointed as the eighth new Chief Minister of Delhi. She is the second youngest chief minister of Delhi after Chaudhary Brahm Prakash who became chief minister at the age of 34. He was the first chief minister of Delhi and remained in office from March 17,1952 to February 12,1955.
The Aam Aadmi Party’s Legislative Council elected Atishi its leader after current CM Arvind Kejriwal proposed her name for the top post during its meeting on Tuesday.
Her hard work, sincerity, dedication to the party, public welfare pays off. While the party’s top leaders including supremo Arvind Kejriwal, former Deputy CM Manish Sisodia and MP Sanjay Singh were in jail in connection with the Delhi excise policy graft case, its Atishi which articulated the party’s position.
She became MLA in 2020 but was inducted into the Delhi Government as a Cabinet Minister, along with Saurabh Bharadwaj after the resignation of Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia and Health Minister Satyender Jain.
Atishi will be the third woman to hold the top post in the national capital after Sushma Swaraj and Sheila Dixit. She will also become the second woman CM in India during current times, after West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
Atishi was born to Delhi University professors Vijay Singh and Tripta Wahi on 8 June 1981 in a family of Punjabi background. She was given the middle name ‘Marlena’ by her parents. According to her party, the name is a portmanteau of Marx and Lenin.
After being raised in Delhi, and finishing high school from Springdales School (Pusa Road), New Delhi,Atishi graduated in history from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi in 2001. Soon after, she went to the Oxford University and in 2003 she completed her master’s degree in History on a Chevening scholarship. In 2005 she went to Magdalen College, Oxford as a Rhodes scholar.
Academic qualifications aside, Atishi is also a committed activist who has chosen the hard path of politics to achieve lasting change. She was closely involved with the Jal Satyagraha in Khandwa district of Madhya Pradesh 2015 and provided support to the AAP leader and activist spearheading the campaign.
She contested from the East Delhi Lok Sabha constituency as an AAP party candidate for the 2019 Lok Sabha Elections. She lost to BJP’s candidate Gautam Gambhir by a margin of 4.77 lakh votes, coming in third.
Later she contested in the 2020 Delhi Legislative Assembly election from Kalkaji constituency of South Delhi. She defeated Dharambir Singh, a Bharatiya Janata Party candidate, by 11,422 votes. Meteoric rise of Atishi from minister by chance to Delhi’s second youngest CM
