New Delhi: Now that the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has won a thumping mandate, speculation is rife over who will be inducted into the Chief Minister –to-be– Arvind Kejriwal's Cabinet.
The AAP has won 67 of the 70 seats in the Delhi Legislative Assembly. But so far, Kejriwal and senior party leaders have kept mum on Cabinet members.
Speculations are high on his close aide Manish Sisodia and former Apple executive Adarsh Shashtri, who is a first time MLA from Dwarka, getting Ministerial berths.
Some contenders who may be honored to be in Delhi's government's prestigious offices are as follows:
Arvind Kejriwal
The Aam Aadmi Party ran its election campaign under the banner of Arvind Kejriwal as the Chief Minister (#5saalKejriwal).
Even though he faced public wrath during Lok Sabha elections he braved all of it with humility and strived to win millions of hearts.
Born on August 16, 1968, in Haryana's Hisar to Gobind Ram Kejriwal and Gita Devi, Kejriwal cleared the IIT entrance exam in his first attempt just after school in 1985 and graduated as a mechanical engineer from IIT Kharagpur.
After completing his engineering, he joined Tata Steel in 1989 and worked there for three years. He resigned in 1992 and cracked the UPSC examination the same year in his first attempt.
His efforts in the enactment of the RTI act to empower the poorest citizens of India won him the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Emergent Leadership in 2006.
He was part of Team Anna, along with India's first woman IPS officer Kiran Bedi, Prashant Bhushan and others. Kejriwal decided to take a plunge into politics and formed the Aam Aadmi Party on November 26 in 2013 after the failure of India Against Corruption movement failed.
The nascent AAP won 28 out of 70 seats in its debut election in Delhi. He resigned just after 49 days in power following the deadlock over a controversial anti-graft bill.
Manish Sisodia
Sisodia hails from Pilakhua, Uttar Pradesh. He is son of a retired school principal. Sisodia has always been interested in social work but his life changed after joining Kejriwal's Parivartan campaign.
Sisodia, 41, who has been Kejriwal's oldest associates and the second-most popular face of the AAP, has studied mechanical engineering at Jammu and later earned a diploma in journalism.
He was briefly a cabinet minister in the Government of Delhi between late December 2013 and February 2014, when he had responsibility for education, PWD, urban development, local bodies and land and building. Prior to being elected to the Legislative Assembly of Delhi in December 2013, Sisodia was a social activist and journalist as well as a member of the National Executive Committee of the Aam Aadmi Party.
Son of a retired school principal, Sisodia hails from Pilakhua, Uttar Pradesh. Sisodia has always been interested in social work but his life changed after joining Kejriwal's Parivartan campaign.
Manish Sisodia contested and won from Patparganj assembly constituency.
Saurabh Bhardwaj
Saurabh is a techie-turned-politician. In 2011 he joined Anna Hazare in India Against Corruption campaign for a corruption-free polity and the demand for setting up a lokpal. Till then Bhardwaj, a software engineer with a firm in Gurgaon, had never thought of taking the plunge.
It was during one such meeting that he registered his phone number with AAP volunteers.
Bhardwaj graduated in law from Osmania University. He is Delhi's former transport, food supply and environment minister.
This young man contested from Greater Kailsah and won.
Satyendra Kumar Jain
Satyendra Jain is an architect by profession. He quit his job with the central public works department (CPWD) over the rampant corruption and turned to politics.
Jain has been associated with Kejriwal from the days of Hazare's anti-corruption agitation.
A social worker, he helped Chitrakoot-based social organisation Drishti, working for visually impaired girls, with the construction of the organisation's building.
He is also associated with social organisation Sparsh, which works for mentally challenged children and organises mass marriages for poor girls.
He was allocated the health and industries ministries in the previous Kejriwal-led government.
He contested elections from Shakur Basti.
Girish Soni
Girish Soni is Aam Aadmi Party's dalit face. He was born in a poor family.
He studied at a government school in Madipur where he completed his primary schooling and higher secondary education.
However, because of financial problems, Soni was unable to pursue a graduation. He then pursued a diploma in air-conditioning and refrigeration from the Industrial Training Institute (ITI) Pusa in Delhi.
He held the portfolios of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, employment, development and labour ministries in the previous Kejriwal-led government.
Somnath Bharti
Somnath Bharti is a social activist. Desperate to bring in a positive change, the IIT-Delhi graduate became one of the founder members of the AAP.
Bharti is the former administrative reforms, law, tourism, art and culture minister.
He ran into trouble after conducting a raid to bust an alleged 'sex and drug racket' in south Delhi during the Kejriwal government's stay in power. It snowballed into a major controversy, triggering a tug of war between the AAP and Delhi Police.
Rakhi Birla
Rakhi Birla's interest in joining politics was triggered in 2011, when she was covering the anti-corruption movement by Anna Hazare as a young journalist.
Birla graduated from Delhi University's Shivaji College and did her masters in journalism from an institute affiliated to Hisar University.
She is Delhi's former women and child development, social welfare and languages minister.
Adarsh Shashtri
AAP leader Adarsh Shashtri, grandson of Lal Bahadur Shashtri, may also get a ministerial berth. He is former Apple executive and a first time MLA from Dwarka.
