Delhi CM’s first event after taking charge: Grand Aarti at Yamuna Ghat

New Delhi: Hours after taking the oath of office on Thursday, Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta and her ministers went to the banks of the Yamuna to participate in the 'aarti', a daily evening ritual at the ghats of Haridwar and Varanasi.

Chief Minister Rekha Gupta and her cabinet ministers, after taking charge of the office at the Delhi Secretariat this noon, assembled at the Vasudev Ghat of the river where they sought the blessings of Ma Yamuna before beginning the governance of the national capital.

With ‘Yamuna aarti’ being the first public event of the newly elected BJP government, it sends out a clear signal about the government’s intention to address the long-standing demand to clean up the Yamuna River, which has largely been reduced to a dirty reservoir due to ignorance of successive governments, IANS reported.

The gesture is also meant to send a political message about BJP’s comeback in the capital after more than two decades. Notably, the polluted Yamuna was the flashpoint between the ruling AAP and the Opposition BJP in the run-up to the Delhi elections, with both engaging in mudslinging over ‘poisoning’ the river.

Earlier, speaking to the press, Chief Minister Rekha Gupta outlined her government’s focus on realising all the poll pledges and commitments that the party made to the people of Delhi.

After the Yamuna aarti, the Chief Minister will chair the first cabinet meeting this evening. It is widely expected that the Rekha Gupta-led BJP government will approve the Mahila Samridhi Yojana, under which eligible women beneficiaries will receive Rs 2,500 monetary assistance every month and also clear the Ayushman Bharat Yojana, a scheme providing free of cost treatment to the poor and unprivileged class families.

The previous AAP dispensation had stopped the roll-out of the Centre’s health insurance scheme, claiming that certain constraints restricted the residents from benefitting under the scheme.