Ahmedabad: After being packed off lock, stock and barrel in September 2021, former Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani, his deputy Nitin Patel and at least five former senior ministers in the sacked ministry on Wednesday voluntarily announced they would prefer to sitout in the December 2022 elections.
Besides Rupani and Patel, former Minister of State for Home Pradeepsinh Jadeja and cabinet-rank ministers Bhupendrasinh Chudasama, Kaushik Patel, RC Faldu and Saurabh Patel have stated they would not contest the elections. Speculations are rife that more such “voluntary announcements” will come.
Finalising party tickets for the Gujarat polls
Highly placed sources at the BJP headquarters indicated that missives had started going to these ministers since late Tuesday night that they would be dropped and they better say it voluntarily. “The idea was to give them a safe passage instead of facing humiliation again, after the entire ministry was sacked last year,” a BJP leader said, pleading anonymity.
This was in view of the BJP’s central parliamentary board meeting in New Delhi on Wednesday to finalise party tickets for the Gujarat polls. The meeting was being attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, national BJP president JP Nadda and top Gujarat leaders, among others.
Sources said the party’s top brass were likely to finalise the entire list of 182 candidates in one go by late Wednesday night.
Sources said this move by Modi is aimed at inducting new faces to send out a message that the party won't tolerate "non-performance". The attempt is clearly at erasing every possible trace of anti-incumbency of the Rupani regime, while the present chief minister Bhupendra Patel is just a year old in office.
Making his announcement, Rupani stated, “I worked as the CM for five years with the support and cooperation of everyone. This time, I believe the responsibility and the opportunity to contest the polls should be given to new faces. I won’t contest the pollsand have sent a letter to the party’s seniors and conveyed it to New Delhi. We willwork together for the victory of the chosen candidates.”
Similarly, senior MLA and former Education Minister Bhupendrasinh Chudasama stated, “I have fought the elections nine times until now and I express my gratitude to the party. I will not fight the elections and have conveyed my decision to the party to give others the opportunity this time.”
