Bhupendra Patel was on Monday sworn in as Gujarat’s 17th Chief Minister at the Gandhinagar Raj Bhawan a day after he was unanimously elected the leader of the BJP legislature party on Sunday.
Immediately after he was sworn in by Governor Acharya Devvrat, Mr. Patel took charge at the Chief Minister’s Office and held a meeting with the top bureaucrats to review the floods situation in Jamnagar and Rajkot in Saurashtra region.
The Chief Minister directed the officials to ensure that people in the low-lying areas are shifted to safer locations as the State is expected to see torrential rains for the next 4-5 days.
Earlier in the day, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Chief Ministers of Goa, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Haryana and Union Ministers Mansukh Mandaviya, N.S. Tomar, Pralhad Joshi, Parshottam Rupala, Bhupender Yadav and others attended the swearing-in ceremony, which lasted a few minutes as only the Chief Minister took the oath of office and secrecy.
There will be another function to administer the oath to the Cabinet members after the names are decided by the party.
According to sources, Mr. Shah, Mr. Patel and other leaders will decide on the names to be included in the Cabinet, as many senior leaders and members of the outgoing Cabinet are likely to be dropped to bring in new faces and infuse dynamism in the administration.
Deputy CM
There is yet no clarity on continuation of Deputy Chief Minister post. “We don’t know yet whether there will be a new Deputy Chief Minister or just Cabinet Ministers,” a party leader said.
Accordingly, no clarity on whether Nitin Patel, outgoing Deputy Chief Minister, will be a part of the Cabinet or not. On Monday, he cried before mediapersons after he was overlooked but subsequently stated that he had no issues with the party and he was a disciplined worker of the BJP.
He also denied media reports that he was not happy with the party’s top leadership’s decision to pick Mr. Bhupendra Patel, a first-time legislator and protege of Uttar Pradesh Governor Anandiben Patel, as the successor of Vijay Rupani.
In the Cabinet, the party is likely to give larger representation to the legislators from Saurashtra and north Gujarat, where the BJP is expects to improve its prospects in the next Assembly elections.
On finalising the names for the new Cabinet, the State BJP’s parliamentary board is likely to meet on Tuesday.
