NEW DELHI, Feb. 20 -- Rekha Gupta, a first-time lawmaker from Shalimar Bagh in west Delhi who rose through the ranks from a student leader to a three-time councillor, will take oath as the next chief minister of Delhi on Thursday after a meeting of the Bharatiya Janata Party's newly elected legislators picked the 50-year-old for the top job.

Gupta, along with senior leaders Ravi Shankar Prasad, Baijayant 'Jay' Panda, Virendra Sachdeva and others, reached Raj Niwas on Wednesday evening to meet lieutenant governor VK Saxena and stake claim to power. She is now set to take oath as Delhi's ninth chief minister on Thursday in a mega ceremony attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and a phalanx of National Democratic Alliance (NDA) leaders. ...