Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta, along with her cabinet ministers, attended the Yamuna aarti on Thursday evening, marking her first public event after taking the oath of office. This came after Gupta took charge of the office after being sworn in as the 9th Chief Minister of Delhi. The aarti was performed at Yamuna’s Vasudev ghat in Delhi. Earlier in the day, Parvesh Verma, Ashish Sood, Manjinder Singh Sirsa, Kapil Mishra, Ravinder Indraj Singh, Kapil Mishra and Pankaj Singh were also administered the oath of office by Lt Governor VK Saxena. Ram bhajans were played at the ghat, and slogans of "Jai Shree Ram" and "Yamuna Maiya Ki Jai" were raised.
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After taking the oath, Gupta reached the Delhi Secretariat and took charge as the Chief Minister of Delhi. She was accompanied by party leaders, including state BJP in-charge Baijayant Panda and state president Virendra Sachdeva among others. After taking charge, Gupta told reporters not a single day would be wasted by her government in realising the "mission" of a "Viksit Delhi". "We will fulfil all the commitments made to the people of Delhi," she said.
Yamuna cleaning issue
The pollution in the Yamuna river and cleaning it had become a major issue between the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on the one side and opposition parties BJP and Congress on the other during the run-up to the Delhi Assembhly elections. AAP convener and former Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal was attacked by both the BJP and the Congress over the highly polluted Yamuna.
Notably, after BJP won with a historic mandate of 48 seats of 70 Delhi Assembly seats, the cleaning process for the Yamuna River was taken up and trash skimmers, weed harvesters, and dredge utility vehicles were deployed to the river on February 16.
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