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Sushma Swaraj sworn in Delhi CM

Sushma Swaraj was today sworn-in as Delhi's first woman chief minister, taking over from Sahib Singh Verma who was asked to step down by the Bharatiya Janata Party leadership.

Swaraj, who was information and broadcasting and communications minister in the Union cabinet, is the third chief minister since 1993 when the BJP came to power following Delhi being accorded assembly status.

Delhi Lt Governor Vijai Kapoor administered the oath of office and secrecy at 11.40 am at a simple ceremony in Raj Niwas. Swaraj took the oath in Hindi.

Home Minister L K Advani, Union ministers Som Pal, Madan Lal Khurana and Santosh Kumar Gangwar, BJP national vice president K L Sharma, outgoing chief minister Sahib Singh Verma, BJP general secretary M Venkaiah Naidu, leader of the opposition in the Delhi assembly Jag Parvesh Chandra, Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee president Shiela Dixit and police commissioner V N Singh were also present on the occasion.

Swaraj, 46, has become chief minister barely a month and a half before assembly elections are to be held in Delhi on November 25.

On Saturday, the party's central leadership met at the prime minister's house and after a day-long meeting decided to ask Sahib Singh Verma to step down and to appoint Swaraj as the chief minister in the run-up to the election.

The move was apparently aimed at refurbishing the party's image and improve its prospects in the elections in the wake of ''failure'' of the Sahib Singh Verma government in controlling prices of essential commodities and solving issues such as power and water scarcity and the increasing law and order problem.

Though Sahib Singh, who had succeeded Madan Lal Khurana in March, 1996, was not very happy with the BJP high command's decision the transition was effected smoothly.

Sahib Singh yesterday said that prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had assured him a ministerial berth in the Union cabinet in the next re-shuffle.

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