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Gujarat ministers resign: Five points on the major cabinet reshuffle today
The reshuffle is expected to be carried out at Mahatma Mandir in Gandhinagar on Friday, according to people familiar to the matter.
All Gujarat ministers, except chief minister Bhupendra Patel, submitted their resignations on Thursday ahead of a major cabinet reshuffle expected to take place today.
The ministers had been told to hand in their resignations by Wednesday afternoon to give CM Patel and the party leadership time to carry out a “strategic reset” ahead of the local body polls and the 2027 assembly elections, according to a senior BJP leader.
The outgoing council of ministers consisted of eight cabinet-rank ministers, two ministers of state (independent charge) and six ministers of state.
The newly appointed BJP Gujarat unit president Jagdish Vishwakarma will reportedly not be retained, in view of the party's ‘one person, one post’ rule.
The reshuffle is expected to be carried out at Mahatma Mandir in Gandhinagar on Friday.
Five points on the Gujarat cabinet reshuffle
• CM Patel met Gujarat Governor Acharya Devvrat on Wednesday evening and submitted the list of new ministers. The new council of ministers will most likely be sworn in around noon on Friday.
• This would be the first major cabinet overhaul in the state after Bhupendra Patel led the BJP to a landslide victory in the 2022 assembly elections.
• Gujarat has a 182-member state assembly, and is therefore allowed to have a maximum of 27 ministers, which would be 15 per cent of the strength of the House.
• According to a BJP leader, CM Bhupendra Patel's new team will have about 22–23 ministers, with only four to five from the previous team being retained.
• Union Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP National President JP Nadda will attend the oath-taking ceremony of the ministers on Friday, for which all BJP MLAs of the state have also been asked to remain in Gandhinagar.
