All Gujarat ministers except CM Patel resign ahead of cabinet expansion

The Gujarat cabinet comprised 17 ministers, including CM Patel. Eight were cabinet-rank ministers, while as many others are ministers of state (MoS).

Updated on: Oct 16, 2025, 17:55:46 IST

By Maulik Pathak

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Sixteen Gujarat ministers submitted their resignations to chief minister Bhupendra Patel on Thursday ahead of a cabinet reshuffle expected to be carried out at Mahatma Mandir in Gandhinagar on Friday, people familiar with the matter said.

Gujarat chief minister Bhupendra Patel (ANI/File)

A senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader said the ministers were told to submit their resignations by the afternoon to give the chief minister and the party leadership a free hand to carry out what has been described by a party leader as a “strategic reset” ahead of the local body elections and the 2027 assembly elections.

The outgoing council of ministers comprised eight cabinet-rank ministers and two ministers of state (independent charge) and six ministers of state.

Patel’s new council of ministers is expected to be sworn in at around noon on Friday.

The chief minister, who has led the state since September 2021, held a meeting with the ministers after their resignations. The ministers have started vacating their offices, a party official said.

The chief minister is expected to meet governor Acharya Devvrat later this evening to submit the list of new ministers. The governor, who also holds charge of Maharashtra, is expected to reach Gandhinagar by 8pm.

A BJP leader said Patel’s new team would have about 22-23 ministers. Only 4-5 ministers from the outgoing team would be retained in this team.

Union home minister Amit Shah and BJP president JP Nadda will also attend the oath ceremony on Friday.

All BJP MLAs have been asked to remain in Gandhinagar.

This is the first major cabinet overhaul after Bhupendra Patel, who replaced Vijay Rupani as chief minister in 2021, led the BJP to a landslide victory in the 2022 state elections.

The newly appointed state BJP president, Jagdish Vishwakarma, is unlikely to be retained in line with the party’s “one person, one post” rule. The government may also revive the post of deputy chief minister, with Harsh Sanghvi and Kunvarji Halpati among the likely contenders, a BJP leader said.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Maulik Pathak
He is an Ahmedabad-based journalist with more than two decades of experience. His career spans business journalism and general news, with reporting across politics, crime, governance, public policy, business, industry, infrastructure, energy, ports, aviation, the environment, wildlife and social issues. He began his career in feature writing before moving into business journalism, reporting on companies and sectors including energy, infrastructure, pharmaceuticals, automobiles and real estate. Over the years, his work expanded to politics, courts, crime, public policy, civic affairs, the environment and wildlife. His reporting has taken him from government offices and courtrooms to factory floors, ports, forests and remote villages, covering stories that range from industrial investments and financial markets to elections, conservation and issues affecting everyday life. While many assignments demand the pace of the daily news cycle, others require sustained reporting over months and years to follow developments beyond the headlines. He started his journalism career with the Asian Age in Ahmedabad in 2002 as a feature writer and sub-editor. Since 2022, he has been working with Hindustan Times. Earlier, he worked with Business Standard, DNA, The Economic Times, Mint and The Times of India. His longest stint was with Mint, where he spent more than eight years reporting across multiple beats. During his career, he has worked in both reporting and editing roles, contributing to page planning, local editions and special editorial projects as newsrooms evolved from print-first operations to digital publishing. Early in his career, he also worked on media and documentary projects with an NGO and as a copywriter at a communications agency before returning to journalism. Away from work, he sometimes makes time for a pair of binoculars, table tennis, cinema and the occasional poem.Read More

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