Ahmedabad. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Bhupendra Patel will take oath as the Chief Minister of Gujarat in Gandhinagar on Monday i.e. today in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other dignitaries. This will be Patel’s second consecutive term as the Chief Minister of Gujarat.
Patel will be sworn in as the state’s 18th chief minister at a ceremony to be held at the helipad ground near the new secretariat in Gandhinagar at 2 pm by Governor Acharya Devvrat. BJP leaders said that apart from the Prime Minister, Union Home Minister Amit Shah and chief ministers of BJP-ruled states will attend the swearing-in ceremony. Some new ministers are also likely to take oath along with Patel.
The BJP won a record 156 out of 182 seats in the recently concluded Gujarat Assembly elections. This is BJP’s seventh consecutive victory in Gujarat assembly elections. Congress has won 17 seats and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has won five seats. Patel (60) had resigned on Friday along with his entire cabinet to pave the way for the formation of a new government in the state.
He was elected the leader of the BJP Legislature Party on Saturday, after which he met the Governor and staked claim to form the next government. Patel defeated his rival in Ghatlodiya seat by a margin of 1.92 lakh votes. Patel had got the reins of the state in September last year following the resignation of Vijay Rupani. Meanwhile, sources said intense consultations are being held in the BJP to choose ministerial candidates.
The party will have to navigate the difficult path of balancing caste and regional representation. He said MLAs Kanu Desai, Raghavji Patel, Hrishikesh Patel, Harsh Shanghvi, Shankar Chowdhary, Purnesh Modi, Manisha Vakil and Raman Patkar are the leaders who are likely to be included in the cabinet.