New Delhi: The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) will form the next Delhi government with Arvind Kejriwal as the chief minister. The debutant party has 28 MLAs and is dependent on the outside support of eight Congress legislators.

Kejriwal, 45, will take oath at a ceremony later this week at central Delhi’s  Ramlila Maidan, from where he catapulted into prominence by joining Gandhian Anna Hazare in 2011 during a protest to seek a stronger Jan Lokpal Bill.

The transparency activist-turned-politician handed over a letter to Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung on Monday afternoon, expressing the AAP decision to form the minority government. He emerged from the Raj Niwas at 1.30 pm, after a 40-minute meeting, and said:  “The lieutenant governor will send a proposal to the President and after that the date of the swearing in ceremony at Ramlila Maidan will be fixed.”

“A confidence motion will be brought soon in the Assembly,” said Kejriwal, a Magsaysay award winner who is set to be the youngest and seventh chief minister of Delhi.

Raj Niwas officials later said Jung sent the AAP proposal to President Pranab Mukherjee in the evening. “The date of swearing in will be known when we get a direction from the President,” said an official.

Sources in the AAP said Kejriwal may take oath on December 25 or 26 and seek a trust vote in the Assembly in a week.

The BJP, the single largest party in the Assembly with 31 MLAs, slammed the AAP’s decision to join hands with the Congress to form the government. “The AAP has compromised on its principles and joined hands with corrupt Congress,” said BJP legislature party’s leader Harsh Vardhan.

Outgoing chief minister Sheila Dikshit of the Congress and Delhi party unit chief Arvinder Singh Lovely said the party’s outside support to the AAP government was aimed at not forcing a re-poll and enabling the debutant party to deliver its “tall” promises – 50 per cent cut in power bills and water for all – so that people can benefit. Some angry Congress supporters protested outside the Delhi unit office on Monday evening, demanding that the party reconsider its support to the AAP which had run down the ruling party in the poll campaign.

AAP legislator and cabinet berth probable, Manish Sisodia, sounded to be in a celebration mode.

“Today is a big day for politics in the nation,” he said.

He expressed confidence that the party will deliver on all its promises. “There is no dearth of expertise. We will involve people and depend on collective wisdom while doing away with practice of hiring consultants,” he said.

Party sources said they were ready with separate action plans for what the new government has to do on the first day in office, the first week, the first fortnight and the first month.
 The suspense over the next Delhi government was broken at 11 am when Kejriwal and Sisodia walked out of the party’s office at Koshambi town in Ghaziabad, bordering Delhi, and said the AAP will form the next Delhi government .

“People in large numbers want us to form the government and I am going to the lieutenant governor to convey the decision,” said Kejriwal, pointing to a bulk of the of 6.97 lakh respondents on phone, website and SMSes and publics meetings who favoured an AAP government.

Soon after the announcement, Kejriwal drove down to the Raj Niwas in north Delhi in a personal car and continued to use the vehicle during the day after formally declining to use the official car and taking security cover by the Delhi Police.

As the media discussed the possible shape of Kejriwal cabinet, some Aam Aadmi Party supporters expressed apprehensions over the rival party’s game plan for the coming days.