From Brahm Prakash to Arvind Kejriwal, here's everything about all Delhi Chief Ministers till date

Delhi has had seven Chief Ministers till date, including Kejriwal. The first Delhi Legislative Assembly election was held in 1952, which marked the beginning of the Interim Assembly. Brahm Prakash served his term as the first Chief Minister of Delhi till 1955, when he was succeeded by Gurmukh Nihal Singh.

After Singh, the post of the Chief Minister of Delhi was abolished in 1956 for a duration of 37 years, only to be resumed in 1993.

Since then, Delhi witnessed the reign of five Chief Ministers serving varying terms - Madan Lal Khurana, Sahib Singh Verma, Sushma Swaraj, Sheila Dikshit, and finally, Arvind Kejriwal.

Chaudhary Brahm Prakash Yadav was the first Chief Minister of Delhi and also an important figure in India's struggle for Independence against the British. He had played a crucial role in Mahatma Gandhi's Satyagraha Movement in 1940 and later, the 'Quit India' movement, having been imprisoned several times during the freedom movement.

Post-independence, Brahm Prakash assumed his role on March 17, 1952, as Delhi CM at the age of 34, the youngest-ever person to hold the post of the Chief Minister of any state at that time. As he belonged to the traditionally dominant peasant-pastoral 'Yadav' community, the issue of advancement of the depressed sections of the society assumed special importance to Brahm Prakash. Staying true to Gandhian ideals, he promoted the idea of cooperative societies to mitigate the problems faced by village folks.

Brahm Prakash is known for organising the National Union of Backward Classes, Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Minorities to work for the welfare of the weaker sections of the society. He was in office till February 12, 1955.

On February 12, 1955, Gurmukh Nihal Singh succeeded Brahm Prakash to the post of the Chief Minister of Delhi. Although he served for just one year, Singh's term is remembered for marking an important transition period for the National Capital Territory.

The States Reorganisation Act, 1956, made Delhi a Union Territory under the direct administration of the President of India and the post of the Chief Minister of Delhi was abolished for 37 years and no election to the Legislative Assembly took place during this time.

In 1993, the Union Territory of Delhi was formally declared as the National Capital Territory of Delhi and elections to the local government were restarted.

After the post of the Delhi CM was abolished, Gurmukh Nihal Singh became the Governor of Rajasthan.

In 1993, the Delhi Legislative Assembly elections were held after 37 years, following which Madan Lal Khurana, of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), became the Chief Minister.

Khurana, born in Lyallpur (now Faisalabad in Pakistan) in the united Punjab province of British India, was a victim of Partition as his family was forced to migrate he was a 12-year-old.

Madan Lal Khurana began his political career during his years studying at the Allahabad University when he joined the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the student organisation affiliated to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). He later founded the Delhi chapter of the Jan Sangh, which transformed into the BJP in 1980.

Though the BJP had generally been facing a bad time contesting in the 1984 General Elections, held soon after the death of Indira Gandhi, Khurana kept the party's spirits afloat in New Delhi, even managing to win the assembly polls and becoming the Chief Minister of Delhi in December 2, 1993, earning him the title 'Dilli Ka Sher (Lion of Delhi)'.

Madan Lal Khurana resigned on February 26, 1996, after being embroiled in a corruption crisis, following a term of three years. He later became the Governor of Rajasthan and also a Union Minister in the second term of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government.

BJP's Sahib Singh Verma succeeded Madan Lal Khurana in 1996 to become the fourth Chief Minister of Delhi.

Born to the Jat community, Verma had early on in his career served the World Jat Aryan Foundation as its president. Later, he became a volunteer in the RSS and climbed the political ranks.

He had contested the 1993 Delhi Legislative Assembly elections, initially winning as a Janata Party candidate but later being re-elected on a BJP ticket. He was a cabinet minister in the Madan Lal Khurana government. However, he became the Chief Minister of Delhi when Khurana resigned in 1996.

Although Khurana was acquitted by the courts, Verma's political power had grown considerably by then and thus he did not give up his seat, thereby making a rival out of Khurana, the former CM.

Verma served for a little more than two years before a crisis in onion prices made him lose his post to Sushma Swaraj in 1998. However, Sahib Singh Verma later served as the Union Minister of Labour in the Vajpayee government.  

A Supreme Court lawyer by profession, Sushma Swaraj witnessed a colourful political career. Her stint in state-level politics was short but solid, however, she witnessed real success in national-level politics later.

Born to Hardev Sharma, a prominent RSS member, Sushma Swaraj completed her studies in law at Punjab University, Chandigarh, and began her political career as a member of the ABVP in the 1970s. While she starting her practice as a Supreme Court advocate in 1973, Sushma Swaraj became the youngest cabinet minister in the Haryana government at the age of 25 as early as in 1977.

In October 1998 she took over as the first female Chief Minister of Delhi, resigning, however, two months later, to continue her stint in national-level politics.

Sushma Swaraj gained wide renown during her term as the Union Minister of External Affairs in the first Narendra Modi-led BJP government (2014-2019) with her prompt, helpful, and effective gestures that made her popular with the Indian diaspora. The US daily 'Wall Street Journal' had even dubbed Swaraj as India's "best-loved politician".

Sushma Swaraj passed away on August 6, 2019.

On December 3, 1998, began the 15-year reign of Congress' Sheila Dikshit as the Chief Minister of Delhi, the longest-serving female chief minister of any Indian state.

Known lovingly as the 'smiling iron lady of Delhi', national-policy making reached its pinnacle during Dikshit's tenure, as her government returned time and again winning in the Legislative Assembly Elections. In the 1998 and 2003 Delhi assembly polls, Dikshit represented the Gole Market assembly constituency. Later in 2008, she contested from the New Delhi seat.

Owing to the long term of her tenure, Dikshit oversaw an important transition period for India, and by extension, an even more important time for the National Capital Territory. Metro trains were expanding its roots through most of the congested Delhi neighbourhoods, public transport was switching to CNG and new roads and flyovers were shaping the city.

Before making the Delhi CM, Sheila Dikshit was a close political associate of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, having served as Union Ministers in his and his mother, Indira Gandhi's cabinet.

It is widely believed that Sheila Dikshit ushered in a new age of all-round development for the national capital, transforming Delhi in the modern, world-class capital it is today.

She lost the 2013 Delhi polls only to the widely popular 'Kejriwal wave' and following the end of her term, she became the Delhi Pradesh Congress president. Sheila Dikshit passed away on July 20, 2019.

Almost catching up with the present, we reach the current and seventh Chief Minister of Delhi, Arvind Kejriwal. Currently, the national convener of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which won the 2015 Delhi Legislative Assembly Elections with a landslide victory, riding what is now called the 'Kejriwal wave', the man's rise in politics is nothing short of remarkable.

A graduate in Mechanical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur, Arvind Kejriwal worked in the Indian Revenue Service as a Joint Commissioner of Income Tax in New Delhi before joining politics. However, Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia (currently the Deputy Chief Minister of Delhi) and others had long been involved in activism and anti-corruption movements, addressing citizens' grievances.

Kejriwal's shot to fame was in 2011 when he, along with Anna Hazare, Kiran Bedi, and other activists formed the India Against Corruption (IAC) group to demand the enactment of the Jan Lokpal Bill, which would result in a strong ombudsman. The campaign evolved into the 2011 Indian anti-corruption movement and Arvind Kejriwal became a widely recognisable face in the intensifying protests, that witnessed Hazare organising a hunger strike and activists getting arrested for defying police directives. By mid-2012, Kejriwal had replaced Anna Hazare as the face of the remaining protestors.

To understand the context further, we would have to go back to the Delhi legislative assembly elections in 2013, when the Kejriwal-led AAP decided to contest the polls. During the 2013 Delhi Elections, the BJP (along with its pre-poll ally Shiromani Akali Dal) had emerged as the single-largest party in the state, having won 32 out of 70 seats, but failed to form a government with support from others. Consequently, after the governor invited the second-largest party AAP, they formed the Delhi government with Arvind Kejriwal as the Delhi Chief Minister. However, in 2014 he resigned from his post, publicly voicing his discontent regarding his inability to table the Jan Lokpal Bill in the Delhi Assembly due to stiff opposition from other parties. Following this, the state went under President's Rule for about a year after which fresh elections were held, in which Kejriwal emerged as victorious, himself having defeated incumbent Chief Minister Sheila Dixit from the New Delhi seat.

The Kejriwal-led AAP government is currently in power. The five-year term of the 70-member Delhi Assembly will end on February 22 and a new House is to be constituted before that.

For the Delhi Assembly Elections 2020, both Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have started gearing up for the polls.

The Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP is eyeing a second consecutive term banking on freebies that it provided to Delhiites including free water, free electricity up to 200 units, free ride for women in DTC and cluster buses, among other measures.