Senior BJP leader Bhupendra Patel was on Sunday elected the new Gujarat Chief Minister.
Patel has replaced Vijay Rupani who had abruptly resigned on Saturday, a year ahead of the state assembly elections.
Bhupendra Patel is an MLA from Ahmedabad’s Ghatlodia and was earlier the Chairman of the Ahmedabad Urban Development Authority.
He would be visiting the Gujarat Governor on Sunday evening and take the oath to the CM’s post on Monday, said the sources.
In a surprising move, Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani had resigned along with his cabinet on Saturday evening.
Rupani did not give any reason for his resignation and just thanked the “BJP leadership for giving him the opportunity” to serve as the Chief Minister.
He had assumed office in 2016 after replacing the then CM Anandiben Patel. It was only last month that he completed five years in office.
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.
Immediately after submitting his resignation to Gujarat Governor Acharya Devvrat, Rupani said that leadership keeps changing as per the requirements and “I will continue to work for the party with the same energy”.
Talking to the media, he said, “It is a specialty of our party that every worker delivers his assigned job to the fullest.”
“I am a loyal soldier of the BJP and have resigned of my own accord. Nobody has asked me to do so. I will work to strengthen the organisation or whatever role the party leadership assigns me,” he told the reporters after tendering the resignation to Governor Acharya Devvrat.