The new Cabinet of Bhupendra Patel, the new chief minister of Gujarat, took oath on Thursday at the Raj Bhavan in Gandhi Nagar. Kanubhai Desai, Kiritsinh Rana, Naresh Patel, Pradip Parmar, Arjunsinh Chauhan, Rajendra Trivedi, Jitu Vaghani, Rushikesh Patel, Purnesh Modi, Raghavji Patel were among those who took the oath. Harsh Sanghvi, Jagdish Panchal, Brijesh Merja, Jitu Choudhary, Manisha Vakil were sworn in as ministers of state with independent charge.
The oath-taking follows hectic parleys that followed after Bhupendra Patel took oath as the new chief minister replacing Vijay Rupani just a year before the state goes to the election.
The cabinet formation was supposed to take place on Wednesday but reports said several senior BJP MLAs were unwilling to renounce their posts.
Amid power tussle between the old ministers and the new names that were being considered, Bhupendra Patel decided to drop all ministers of the Vijay Rupani government and get an altogether fresh Cabinet. Assembly Speaker Rajendra Trivedi resigned from the Assembly to join the Cabinet and took oath on Thursday.
Chief minister Bhupendra Patel will hold the first Cabinet meeting at 4pm.
The removal of Nitin Patel the former deputy chief minister from the Cabinet comes as surprising as he was widely speculated to be the chief minister after Rupani resigned.
Though replacing the chief minister ahead of assembly elections is not a new strategy of the party as it has already done the same in Uttarakhand and Karnataka this year, in Gujarat, it is an entirely new Cabinet with the responsibility of taking care of the Prime Minister and home minister's home state in the election year.
{{/usCountry}}Though replacing the chief minister ahead of assembly elections is not a new strategy of the party as it has already done the same in Uttarakhand and Karnataka this year, in Gujarat, it is an entirely new Cabinet with the responsibility of taking care of the Prime Minister and home minister's home state in the election year.
{{/usCountry}}While the major reshuffle has created resentment, this will not create a rift in the party as the reshuffle has been handled by the top leadership reports said.