India, Feb. 19 -- First-time legislator Rekha Gupta who won the Shalimar Bagh seat will be the next Delhi chief minister, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said on Wednesday evening after a meeting of the Delhi BJP's legislative party.

Gupta, who has been thrice elected to the municipal council from North Pitampura ward, was elected leader of the BJP legislative party at its meeting at the state unit headquarters on Wednesday evening. She later met Delhi Lieutenant Governor Vinai Kumar Saxena and formally staked claim to form a government in the national capital.

Senior BJP leaders, Lok Sabha MP Ravi Shankar Prasad and the party's national secretary Om Prakash Dhankar, who were appointed as central observers by the BJP parliamentary boar...