Patidar quota stir leader Hardik Patel on Thursday dropped a bombshell by saying that the chief minister of Gujarat would be changed in 10 days.
Patel, who was in Rajkot, the home city of Chief Minister Vijay Rupani, told mediapersons that “the decision on Rupani's resignation was taken in Wednesday's cabinet meeting”.
He even went on to claim that the new face would be either from the Kshatriya or Patidar community. Patel claimed that Rupani would be replaced for what he termed as the latter's failure to maintain law and order in the state. He gave no further reasons to back his claim about Rupani's resignation.
For the last couple of days, rumours have reportedly been doing the rounds that Gujarat would get a new chief minister.
Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel on Thursday termed as baseless any talk about change in leadership. He said that these were just rumours and were being circulated by people who want to create distrust among the BJP's rank and file.
Even though Prime Minister Narendra Modi and national party president Amit Shah addressed a series of rallies ahead of the 2017 Assembly elections, the party had managed to hold on to power but its strength stood at 99 seats in the 182-member Assembly.
Soon after Rupani was sworn in, there were rumours that he could be replaced but nothing happened.
Even as recently as Wednesday, Rupani was holding fort and before a select media gathering, he had displayed a monitoring unit set up at his residence from where he could keep a tab on various facilities of the state government and the district collectorates.