Close aide of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, 60-year-old Vijay Rupani sworn in as the 16th Chief Minister of Gujarat at Mahatma Mandir in the State capital Gandhinagar on Sunday.
Nitin Patel, the senior Minister in previous Anandiben Patel Government, took oath as the Deputy Chief Minister. Governor OP Kohli administered oath of office and secrecy to nine Cabinet rank Ministers (including Rupani and Nitin) and 16 Ministers of State. Against the permissible limit of 27 Ministers, the new Government would function with 25 Ministers.
Elected as leader of the Gujarat BJP legislature on Friday, Rupani’s council is bigger than his two predecessors — Anandiben and Narendra Modi. Size of Anandiben Government operated with 24 Ministers, while Modi kept his council as compact as 17.
“The first Cabinet of my Government is meeting on Monday in which we all will decide future course of action,” said Rupani, who is expected to allot portfolios to his Ministers in the Cabinet meeting. The Rajkot West MlA in the State Assembly also thanked PM Modi and BJP president Amit Shah for reposing faith in him.
He said that his Government was fully committed to harnessing aspirations of the marginalised, poor, farmers and young people. In lines with ‘one man, one post’ policy of the saffron party, Rupani had resigned as the Gujarat BJP president on the eve of his coronation as Gujarat CM.
As many as nine new faces have been included in Rupani’s Council of Ministers and eight were dropped from earlier Anandiben Government.
The new inductees are Ganapat Vasava, Atmaram Parmar, Nirmla Vadhvani, Vallabh Kakadia, Rajendra Trivedi, Keshaji Chauhan, Rohit Patel, Bachu Khabad and V Vaghasia.
Three Cabinet rank Ministers Saurabh Patel, Mangubhai Patel and Ramanlal Vora in the earlier Government were dropped.
Besides five junior Ministers–Vasuben Trivedi, Rajni Patel, Govind Patel, Tarachand Chheda and Kanti Gamit have been dropped. Two junior Ministers –Jayesh Radadiya and Dilip Thakor in the previous Government have promoted to Cabinet rank. Jayesh is the son of powerful Patidar leader of Saurashtra region Vithal Radadia.