NEW DELHI: On Monday, the new Council of Ministers under Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel inaugurated 16 MLAs, of which three are patidaras, seven are OBC leaders, two are from ST communities and one is from the SC community, Brahmins, Jains and Rajputs.
Two days after he was elected leader of the BJP legislative party at a meeting of newly elected MLAs, Patel and his ministers were sworn in by Gujarat Governor Acharya Devvrat in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah. The ceremony took place on a helipad inside the new secretariat building in Gandhinagar, in the presence of several Union ministers and chief ministers of the BJP-run state.
The 18th Chief Minister of Gujarat has recruited six new faces to his Council of Ministers, including one female MLA. The remaining 10 were part of the former governments of Bhupendra Patel, Vijay Rupani or Anandiben Patel.
Of the 16 members of the new council of ministers, eight were persuaded to become cabinet ministers: Rushikesh Patel, Raghavji Patel, Kanu Desai, Balwant Singh Rajput, Kunwarji Bawalia, Mulu Bera, Kuber Dindor and Bhanuben Babaruben Babararia. The new cabinet includes two leaders from the Patidar and OBC communities and one leader from the SC, ST, Brahmin and Rajput communities.
Regional balance was also given due attention: the new Council of Ministers included five leaders each from the southern regions of Saurashtra and Gujarat, and three leaders each from central and northern Gujarat.
Gordhan Zadafia, vice chairman of the Gujarat BJP, told ThePrint that “caste, community and district representation was taken into account in the formation of the new council of ministers.”
The outgoing Council of Ministers, chaired by Bhupendra Patel, consists of seven patidars, six OBC community leaders, three SC community leaders, four ST community leaders, two Brahmin and Kshatriya community leaders, and a Jain community leader.
“The OPK got more representation because the party held several small public gatherings in the OBK-dominated areas before the elections, and the community strongly supported the BJP. But if you compare, the patidars are also well represented.” Patidar community,” said a BJP leader in Gujarat.
Earlier this month, the BJP returned to power in Gujarat for a seventh consecutive term, taking a historic 156 seats in the 182-member parliament.
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The current corporate director of the Rajkot Municipal Corporation and three-time MLA member Bhanuben Babariya, who this time won from the Rajkot Rural, is the only female minister on the new Council of Ministers. Leader of the Dalits, she was twice elected to the assembly earlier in 2007 and again in 2012.
The cabinet also includes Balwant Singh Rajput, who first came into the spotlight in the 2017 Rajya Sabha polls when the BJP sent him to live with his former boss, the late Ahmad Patel. Prior to joining the BJP, Rajput was Chairman of the Gokul Group, where he served in Congress for over 25 years. He is also believed to be close to the late Madhavsingh Solanki, former Chief Minister of the Congress.
Meanwhile, Kunwarji Bawalia defected to the BJP in 2018 and was appointed Minister of Water Resources in the Rupani government, a post he held until the central leadership of the BJP Council of Ministers gave up locks, stockpiles and barrels. Bavalia’s seven-time MLA was prepared by the BJP along with Parshottam Solanki on behalf of the Koli community.
The other cabinet member is Rushikesh Patel, a patidar leader from the Mahesana district who replaced former Deputy Prime Minister Nitin Patel as Minister of Health in the former government of Bhupendra Patel, in addition to Mulu Ber, the party leader who defeated Aam Aadmi. face to face with Isudan Gadvi, leading in Hambaliya with over 18,000 votes.
Apart from Rushikesh Patel, other cabinet ministers left over from the previous government of Bhupendra Patel are Raghavji Patel, Kanu Desai, Kuber Dindor, Mukesh Patel and Jagdish Vishwakarma. Raghavji Patel was Minister of Agriculture in the early government of Bhupendra Patel while three-time MLA and Brahmin leader Kanu Desai was Minister of Finance and Dindor was Minister of State for Technical Education.
Unlike the first government of Bhupendra Patel, the independently responsible Council of Ministers included only two ministers: Harsh Sanghavi, the junior home minister, and Jagdish Vishwakarma.
Also elected to the Council of Ministers were MLA BJP Praful Pansheria, Bhikhusinji Parmar, Kunvarji Halpati and Bachubhai Chabad, who was the Fisheries Minister in Anandiben Patel’s government.
An unexpected omission in the Council of Ministers was Jitu Vagani, chairman of the Gujarati BJP during Rupani’s tenure. Known in political circles as “The Man of Amit Shah”, he was succeeded by C. R. Patil.
Prominent leaders of the Patidar Reservation agitation elected as MLAs on the BJP list, Hardik Patel and Alpesh Takor, also failed to find a seat on the council of ministers.
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Post time: Dec-13-2022