- Bhupendra Patel becomes Gujarat’s 18th chief minister.
- Narendra Modi, ministers, and BJP state chief ministers attended.
- Union ministers and BJP-ruled state chief ministers participated.
Bhupendra Patel, a leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), took the oath of office as Gujarat‘s chief minister on Monday in Gandhinagar in front of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union ministers, and chief ministers of BJP-ruled states.
Eight ministers with cabinet rank and sixteen additional ministers were also sworn in. There are 11 former ministers among the newcomers.
At a ceremony conducted at the Helipad Ground next to the new Secretariat, Governor Acharya Devvrat gave Patel the oath to serve as the 18th chief minister.
Kanu Desai, Rishikesh Patel, Raghvji Patel, Balvantsinh Rajput, Kunvarji Bavaliya, Mulu Bera, Kuber Dindor, and Bhanuben Babariya are among the cabinet ministers.
Jagdish Vishwakarma and Harsh Sanghvi were sworn in as independent ministers of state.
Parshottam Solanki, Bachu Khabad, Mukesh Patel, Praful Pansheriya, Kuverji Halpati, and Bhikhusinh Parmar are the other six state ministers.
Four of the 16 ministers—Bavaliya, Khabad, Solnaki, and Mukesh Patel—come from the Koli community, three—Raghavji, Rishikesh, and Praful—come from the Patidar group, three—Vishwakarma, Parmar, and Bera—come from the OBC, and two—come from the tribal community (Halpati and Dindor).
Sanghvi is a Jain, Desai is a Brahmin, Babariya is from the Scheduled Caste community, and Rajput is a Kshatriya.
In a tweet, PM Modi thanked CM Patel and his new staff.
“Congratulations to Shri Bhupendrabhai Patel on taking oath as CM of Gujarat. I would like to also congratulate all those who took oath as Ministers. This is an energetic team which will take Gujarat to even newer heights of progress” the PM tweeted after the ceremony.
Seven of the 11 former ministers appointed to the Bhupendra Patel government 2.0 were a part of the administration he presided over from September 2021 to December 2022.
They are Mukesh Patel, Rushikesh Patel, Raghavji Patel, Kuber Dindor, Jagdish Vishwakarma, and Harsh Sanghavi.
Solanki, Bera, Khabad, and Bavaliya were four other individuals who had previously held the position of minister in BJP administrations.
The swearing-in ceremony was attended by prominent BJP figures, including Union ministers and chief ministers of states where the party is in power.
They included Amit Shah, a union minister, Yogi Adityanath, Eknath Shinde, Manohar Lal Khattar, Himanta Biswa Sarma, S. R. Bommai, Pramod Sawant, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Pema Khandu, and Shivraj Singh Chouhan, the chief ministers of Karnataka, Goa, and MP.
Smriti Irani, Ramdas Athawale, and Sarbananda Sonowal, as well as BJP president JP Nadda, were present.
The BJP won a record-breaking 156 seats in the 182-member House in the recently-completed Gujarat Assembly elections, the results of which were announced on December 8 and led to the party securing a seventh consecutive term. 17 seats went to the Congress, while 5 went to the AAP.
In order to facilitate the formation of a new administration in response to the election results, Patel, 60, resigned from his position as chief minister on Friday along with his whole cabinet.
After being chosen as the BJP legislative party’s leader on Saturday, he met with the governor and declared his intention to create the next government.
With the largest margin of 1.92 lakh votes, Patel won the Ghatlodia seat in the elections.
Patel succeeded Vijay Rupani as CM in September 2021. He was a low-profile BJP leader and the first member of the Kadva Patidar sub-group to hold the position.
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