Manish Sisodia to be Deputy Chief Minister of Delhi; Somnath Bharti, Rakhi Birla likely to be left out

New Delhi: Senior AAP leader Manish Sisodia, a close confidant of party chief Arvind Kejriwal, is all set to be the Deputy Chief Minister of Delhi.

The decision to make Sisodia the Deputy CM was taken at a meeting of AAP's Political Affairs Committee (PAC) last night at Kejriwal's residence in Kaushambhi, party sources said.

Sisodia is being given the responsibility so that Chief Minister-designate Kejriwal can focus on building the party at the national level, they said.

Sisodia is credited with strengthening AAP at the grassroot level after it lost all the seven parliamentary constituencies in the Lok Sabha elections last year.

He was minister of Education, PWD, Urban Development and Local Bodies in the 49-day AAP government that had resigned on February 14 last year on the Lokpal issue.

Kejriwal, Sisodia and other cabinet ministers will take oath of office at Ramlila ground on Saturday.

Sisodia had won from Patparganj constituency defeating BJP's Vinod Kumar Binny who was expelled from the party last year.

He had worked as a journalist with Zee News and All India Radio for a long time. He later quit journalism to participate in the agitation for Right To Information.

He was one of the founding members of the Jan Lokpal agitation and part of the team, which chalked out its first draft. When Anna Hazare was arrested and sent to jail during the agitation, he too was sent to prison.

Among those likely to be included in Kejriwal’s cabinet are - Satyendra Jain, Adarsh Shastri, Saurabh Bhardwaj, Jitender Tomar, Kapil Mishra, Sandeep Kumar and Asim Ahmed Khan.

Reportedly, Ram Nivas Goyal may be appointed as Speaker of the Delhi Assembly and Bandana Kumar could be deputy speaker.

According to reports, Kejriwal has kept the two controversial party leaders and former ministers - Somnath Bharti and Rakhi Birla - out of his Cabinet this time.