Hummingbird News Desk
NEW DELHI, 12 SEP: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA Bhupendra Patel has been selected as the new Chief Minister of Gujarat on Sunday following the BJP legislature meeting in Gandhinagar.
He will be sworn-in as the 17th CM of Gujarat tomorrow, confirmed Union Minister Narendra Singh Tomar.
“Bhupendra Patel was elected as the new leader of BJP legislative party,” said Tomar.
Patel is BJP MLA from Ghatlodiya Assembly constituency in Gujarat and has served as a chairman of the standing committee of the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation in the past.
The 55-year-old was unanimously elected BJP legislature party leader. His name was proposed by Vijay Rupani, whose resignation from the post on Saturday surprised many.
The high command of the Bharatiya Janata Party met during the day to finalise the name of a new CM.
BJP’s central observers Pralhad Joshi and Narendra Singh Tomar were part of the meeting, which was held at the party office in Gandhinagar.
Apart from that, Union minister and BJP leader Mansukh Mandaviya, and Deputy Chief Minister of Gujarat Nitin Patel, were also present.
BJP Gujarat president CR Patil, who took himself out of the race for CM on Saturday was also part of the meeting, along with Rupani.
There was talk that Praful Khoda Patel, administrator of the union territories of Lakshadweep and Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu and Mandaviya were among the contenders.
Bhupendra Patel’s name was not in the long list of probables being discussed in state political circles and in a way the first term MLA emerged as the dark horse, a political observer said.
According to sources, the move is a “course correction” by the BJP leadership ahead of the assembly elections next year.
Rupani is the third BJP Chief Minister who resigned recently. First, it was Tirath Singh Rawat, who resigned as the Uttarakhand CM on 3 July, then B S Yediyurappa who quit as the Karnataka Chief Minister on 26 July.
Tags: #BhupendraPatel #GujaratChiefMinister #VijayRupani
