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The newly-elected Council of Ministers in Gujarat took the oath of office on Monday with Bhupendra Patel taking the oath as Chief Minister for the second time. Gujarat Governor Acharya Devvrat administered the oath to the 60-year-old Patel, who won from the Ghatlodia seat with a maximum winning margin of 1.9 lakh votes.
Bhupendra Patel sworn in as the CM of Gujarat for the second time
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Chief Ministers of 11 BJP-ruled States, senior party leaders, saints, and artists remained in attendance at a ceremony held in Gandhinagar. The 16 ministers include eight in the Cabinet rank, two with the Minister of State with Independent charge, and six in the rank of Minister of State.
The new Council of Ministers has five debutant Ministers, eight are repeated from the outgoing cabinet while three ministers had previously held portfolios under the Vijay Rupani government.
Caste representation
The BJP has tried to strike a balance on caste and regional representation — seven are from other backward classes (OBC), four are Patidars, one is from scheduled caste (SC), two from scheduled tribes (ST), two are from non-Patidar general category, while one is a Jain.
In the regional representation, North Gujarat, Central Gujarat, and South Gujarat have four ministers each, while five ministers are from Saurashtra and Kutch.
Those in the Cabinet rank include former corporate face and finance minister in the outgoing government, Kanubhai Desai, Rushikesh Patel, who earlier held the health and family welfare portfolio, and Raghavji Patel, minister for agriculture and farmer welfare in the outgoing government. The MoS Home Harsh Sanghvi has been repeated as MoS with Independent Charge.
The other senior leaders who got the ministerial berths include Saurashtra’s prominent OBC Parshottam Solanki and tribal leader Kunvarji Halpati. A first-time MLA from Kamrej seat in Surat, Praful Panseria was inducted as MoS, while the only female face in the Council was Bhanuben Babariya from Rajkot South seat.
Elections 2022
The BJP held its legislative party meeting on Saturday, where Patel was elected as the leader of the legislative party. Patel had first taken the oath as 17th Chief Minister of Gujarat on September 2021. BJP won the highest-ever 156 seats of the 182-seat Legislative Assembly seats in the State in elections held on December 1 & 5. The results were declared on December 8.
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