Ahead of the Assembly polls next year, a man with tremendous organisational skills Vijay Rupani became new president of Gujarat BJP on Friday.
An MlA from Rajkot west and senior Cabinet Minister in the Anandiben Patel Government, 60-year-old Rupani has tough task at hand to ensure his party’s victory in wake of on-going Patidar agitation led by imprisoned Hardik Patel. The saffron party already suffered wrath of Patel (Patidar) community in the recently held elections of local self-government bodies. BJP lost majority in the taluka and district panchayat after a gap of almost two decades.
Meanwhile on Friday at 12.39 pm (Vijay Muhart) Rupani was unanimously elected as the 10th chief of BJP’s Gujarat unit. Amidst chanting of shlokas, he took the reign of the party’s affair in the State at BJP’s sprawling Gujarat headquarter ‘Kamalam’ situated on the outskirts of Gujarat.
Having started his political career as an activist of Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) way back in 1971, Rupani, who born in Rangoon (Myanmar), has earned reputation of being a disciplined worker of a cadre based party. As a student leader he was also jailed during emergency.
He became councillor in Rajkot Municipal Corporation (RMC) and later went on to become mayor of Rajkot considered as the commercial capital of Saurashtra-Kutch region or West Gujarat. He was also a Member of Parliament (Rajya Sabha). As Saurashtra-Kutch in-charge of BJP he played crucial role in the victory of saffron party in the past three Assembly elections.
He was also head of 20-point implementation panel during Keshubhai Patel’s regime in the State before taking over as party general secretary and chairmanship of Tourism Corporation of Gujarat limited between 2006 to 2012. In the year 2015, he contested a by-poll from Rajkot West Assembly segment and joined Anandiben Patel Government as minister of surface transport.
Rupani’s proximity to the PM Modi is known to everyone in political circles of Gujarat. He also shares good rapport with BJP’s national president Amit Shah. Rupani belongs to Jain Bania community which is hardly 3 to 4 per cent of Gujarat’s population. In fact, party think tank did balancing act by not choosing the new party chief in the state from either Patel or Kshtriya community.
The party is already struggling hard to keep its traditional Patel voteback intact. A section of Patels have been on agitation since July last seeking quotas to Government jobs and educational institutions at par with OBCs. This also saw OBCs come out in open opposing any move to dilute reservations. It is this quandary that had delayed appointment of new State party chief. The BJP did not want to antagonise both these dominant communities by appointing a party president from either side.
“Ayodhya mein Ram, Yuvano ko kaam aur Kisano ko sahi daam (Ram Temple in Ayodhya, jobs for youth and right price to farmers) has been BJP’s guiding force,” said the new Gujarat BJP chief soon after taking charge. Talking to media persons he came down heavily on opposition Congress for its stance on JNU episode. He went on to say that a war has begun between ‘nationalists’ and ‘anti-nationals’.