Bhupendra Patel to take oath as Gujarat CM; PM Modi to attend

Bhupendra Patel. Pic/PTI

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Bhupendra Patel will take oath as the Chief Minister of Gujarat for a second straight term in Gandhinagar on Monday in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, and other dignitaries.

Patel will be administered the oath as the 18th chief minister by Governor Acharya Devvrat at a function to be held at the Helipad Ground near the new Secretariat at 2 PM. Besides the prime minister and Shah, chief ministers of other BJP-ruled states are set to attend the ceremony, BJP leaders said. Along with Patel, some new ministers are also expected to take the oath. In the just-concluded Gujarat Assembly elections, counting for which was held on December 8, the BJP won a seventh straight term by winning record 156 seats in the 182-member House.

The Congress won 17 constituencies and AAP 5. Patel, 60, resigned as chief minister along with his entire cabinet on Friday to pave the way for the formation of a new government following the election results. He was elected as the leader of the BJP legislative party on Saturday, following which he met the governor and staked the claim to form the next government. Patel won the Ghatlodia seat with the highest margin of 1.92 lakh votes in the elections. A low-profile BJP leader and the first from the Kadva Patidar sub-group to become CM, Patel replaced Vijay Rupani in September 2021.

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Hectic consultations are going on in BJP for picking ministerial candidates against the backdrop of the historic mandate given the party will have to walk the tightrope of balancing caste and regional representations, sources said. MLAs Kanu Desai, Raghavji Patel, Rushikesh Patel, Harsh Sanghavi, Shankar Chaudhary, Purnesh Modi, Manisha Vakil, Ramanlal Vora and Raman Patkar are among those expected to be inducted in the ministry, they added.

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