The Atishi-led Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government in Delhi will have a new minister, Mukesh Kumar Ahlawat, the MLA from Sultanpur Majra. Ahlawat incidentally is a former BSP leader who fills the vacancy created in the Delhi government by the resignation and defection of one of its ministers to the BSP, who later joined the BJP. Apart from Ahlawat, Chief Minister-designate Atishi’s new Council of Ministers will have Gopal Rai, Kailash Gahlot, Saurabh Bharadwaj and Imran Hussain, who stay on from the Arvind Kejriwal government. The Delhi government can appoint seven ministers and has been functioning with six since Raaj Kumar Anand, who was the minister of social welfare, quit AAP before the Lok Sabha polls and joined BSP in April to contest from the New Delhi constituency. In July, he joined the BJP. While the party has yet to announce the portfolio of all ministers, Ahlawat is likely to get social welfare. “I am very thankful to Arvind Kejriwal ji and Chief Minister-designate Atishi for giving me this opportunity. I will fulfill my responsibility to serve the people and also work hard in my constituency and across the city to make Kejriwalji CM again.,” Ahlawat said. “I don’t know which portfolio will be given to me yet but whichever department I get, I will work on expediting ongoing projects,” he added. Ahlawat, a Dalit face, will help the party stem the damage caused by the resignations of Anand and another senior Dalit leader, Rajendra Pal Gautam. Both left the AAP, accusing the party of “neglecting Dalits”. Gautam had joined the Congress last month. On the allegations made by the two leaders, Ahlawat said, "Raaj Kumar Anand ji resigned after ED conducted raids. he was under pressure. If he had not left AAP, he would have been arrested. Unlike other leaders, he caved before the BJP and made false allegations to malign the AAP. Rajendra Pal Gautam ji was upset and unhappy ever since he was asked to step down as social welfare minister. So, these are nothing but allegations to defame Kejriwal ji and AAP." He maintained that the party and its leaders are ardent followers of the teachings of Dr Ambedkar and Bhagat Singh. “The party is very supportive and works for the rights of Dalits,” he added. With Assembly elections in Delhi scheduled for February 2025, the AAP will want all sections by its side, and at 12% of the population, Dalits make up a big chunk. In the 2020 Assembly polls, the AAP had won all the 12 SC-reserved seats in Delhi. As a BSP leader, Ahlawat had contested in the Delhi Assembly polls 2008 and 2013 and lost. He joined the AAP in 2017. He won for the first time on an AAP ticket from the Sultanpur Majra reserved seat in 2020; this constituency was earlier held by Sandeep Kumar, who was sacked from the Cabinet and the party in 2016 over a CD showing him purportedly in a compromising position with a woman. The woman later made rape allegations against Kumar, who incidentally also held the social welfare department portfolio. He recently got a clean chit on the issue. Ahlawat is an active voice in the party as well as in his constituency. When Kejriwal was arrested in the alleged excise policy scam, he held several campaigns such as ‘AAP ka MLA aapke dwaar (Your MLA at your doorstep)’, and met people to convey the AAP leader’s “message”. He was also chairman of the district development committee since March 19, 2017. The AAP’s co-in charge for Rajasthan, Ahlawat hails from Delhi and studied in Pitampura. He is into the real estate business. In his election affidavit, he declared movable assets worth approximately Rs 60 lakh and immovable assets worth Rs 5.6 crore.
