Atishi, Saurabh Bharadwaj get Delhi L-G nod to take ministerial posts

AAP MLA Atishi and Saurabh Bhardwaj’s names have been recommended for appointment as ministers in the cabinet by Delhi Lieutenant Governor VK Saxena on Thursday, March 2 following the resignations of Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia and Cabinet Minister Satyendar Jain. 

Delhi Lt Governor has given the names to President Droupadi Murmu and their appointments will only be effective once the resignations of Sisodia and Jain are accepted. 

Atishi is slated to become the first female Minister in the current Cabinet. She is a member of the AAP's political affairs committee, which is the party's top decision-making body.

Currently serving as the party's chief spokesperson,Bharadwaj was a member of the Cabinet in Delhi in 2015 when the AAP initially took office.

Sisodia's arrest 

Delhi Deputy CM and Education Minister Manish Sisodia was arrested after eight hours of questioning by the CBI on February 26. He was taken for questioning on Sunday over the alleged liquor scam which took place under the Delhi Excise Policy. Earlier a bureaucrat, in his statement to CBI revealed that Sisodia played a key role in forming the Excise Policy, which was implemented in November 2021 and later scrapped. 

The new charges on Sisodia are under IPC sections 120B (criminal conspiracy), 477A (falsification and intention of destroying evidence), something which CBI already revealed claiming that several mobile phones were destroyed for the same. He has also been charged under the Prevention of Corruption Act.

On the other hand, Jain was arrested by the ED last year in a money-laundering case.