Senior BJP leader and Rohini MLA Vijender Gupta has been nominated as the party’s candidate for the post of Delhi Assembly Speaker, party officials announced on Thursday.
Confirming his nomination, Gupta said, “My first priority will be to table the pending Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) reports that were withheld by the previous AAP government.”
A three-term legislator from Rohini, Gupta, along with other BJP MLAs, had earlier moved court, alleging that the AAP government had obstructed the presentation of 14 CAG reports evaluating its performance.
In the newly constituted 8th Delhi Assembly, the BJP holds a majority with 48 MLAs, while the opposition AAP has 22 legislators. The Assembly Speaker is elected by the House members.
Gupta secured his third consecutive victory in the Rohini Assembly constituency by defeating AAP’s Pradeep Mittal by a margin of 37,816 votes. Rohini has long been a BJP stronghold, with Gupta maintaining his dominance even during AAP’s strong electoral performances in the 2015 and 2020 elections.
A seasoned politician, Gupta has previously served as the Leader of the Opposition in the Delhi Assembly, president of the BJP’s Delhi unit, a member of the Delhi Development Authority, and chairman of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi’s (MCD) standing committee.
Who is Vijender Gupta?
Born on August 14, 1963, Vijender Gupta is an alumnus of Shri Ram College of Commerce. He started his political career in 1980 with Janata Vidyarthi Morcha and later became president of Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha in 1995.
His electoral success started in 1997 when he was elected as a councillor in the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD). Over the years, he held key positions, including Chairman of the Law & General Purpose Committee and Deputy Chairman of the House Tax Committee. Gupta has been elected three times in municipal elections from Rohini.
Despite a setback in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections against Congress leader Kapil Sibal and a loss to Arvind Kejriwal in the 2013 Delhi Assembly elections, Gupta bounced back in 2015 by winning the Rohini seat and becoming one of BJP’s three victorious candidates that year. He retained the seat in 2020, defeating AAP’s Rajesh Nama ‘Bansiwala’ by over 12,000 votes, and secured another victory in 2025 with the highest winning margin among BJP candidates.
(With inputs from PTI)
