Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday congratulated the 24 ministers who took oath as part of the Gujarat Cabinet's swearing-in ceremony. He said these newly-inducted ministers are "outstanding karyakartas who have devoted their lives to public service and spreading our party’s development agenda".
Taking to Twitter, PM Modi wrote: "Congratulations to all Party colleagues who have taken oath as Ministers in the Gujarat Government. These are outstanding Karyakartas who have devoted their lives to public service and spreading our Party’s development agenda. Best wishes for a fruitful tenure ahead."
Earlier in the day, Gujarat Governor Acharya Devvrat administered the oath to the newly-inducted ministers at Raj Bhawan in Gandhinagar in the presence of Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel and former CM Vijay Rupani.
Rajendra Trivedi, the former Speaker of State Assembly, was also inducted as minister in the Cabinet.
Harsh Sanghvi, Jagdish Panchal, Brijesh Merja, Jitu Choudhary, Manisha Vakil, Kanubhai Desai, Kiritsinh Rana, Naresh Patel, Pradip Parmar, Arjunsinh Chauhan, Jitu Vaghani, Rushikesh Patel, Purnesh Modi, Raghavji Patel, Mukesh Patel, Nimisha Suthar, Arvind Raiyani, Kuber Dindor, Kirtisinh Vaghela, Ganjedra Parmar, Raghvbhai Makwana, Vinod Moradia, Devabhai Malam have been sworn-in as the ministers in Gujarat's cabinet.
Ahead of the swearing-in ceremony, there were speculations that senior ministers in the Rupani ministry, like Nitin Patel, Bhupendrasinh Chudasama, Kaushik Patel, Pradeepsinh Jadeja, and R C Faldu may not be included. The BJP took the "no-repeat" formula a step further by not inducting any member of the Vijay Rupani-led government.
Political observers say the BJP expects to make an impact ahead of the 2022 Assembly polls with this new-look ministry.
After picking Patel, a Patidar community leader as the CM, the BJP has given berth to six Patels and OBCs each, four from scheduled tribes, three from scheduled castes, two each from among brahmins and kshatriyas and one member from the Jain community.
The party is counting on Patel to shore up the party's fortunes ahead of the assembly elections towards the end of next year. In the 2017 state election, the BJP won 99 of the state's 182 Assembly seats and Congress got 77 seats.
(With ANI and PTI inputs)
