In a move that has left many eyebrows raised, Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani tendered his resignation on Saturday.
Rupani, 65, went to Gujarat Governor Acharya Devvrat’s residence along with his cabinet colleagues and submitted the resignation. He was also accompanied by Union ministers Purshottam Rupala and Mansukh Mandaviya.
Gujarat BJP in-charge Bhupendra Yadav said that a decision on the new chief minister will be taken at a meeting of the party’s Parliamentary Board.
The move comes in less than an hour after Rupani was present at a function organised by Vishwa Patidar Samaj in Ahmedabad where Prime Minister Narendra Modi had joined virtually.
Gujarat Assembly elections are due in the second half of 2022.
Rupani, who took over as the chief minister in August 2016 from Anandiben Patel, is the first BJP chief minister after Modi to have completed a five-year term in Gujarat. The government also celebrated the five-year term taking into consideration that Rupani took over the charge in August 2016 and this year marked five years. Officially, otherwise, the five-year term would have completed in 2022.
Gujarat BJP president C.R. Patil is expected to address a press conference later in the day.
All the BJP MLAs have been asked to reach state capital Gandhinagar by Saturday evening.
Ever since Rupani took over as the chief minister, he was considered Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s choice. On and off there were speculations that he would be removed as the chief minister.
However, the times were not right for the party to effect a change. The BJP won hands down in the local civic elections, leaving little reason to make a change.
Later on, it was alleged that the administration failed in tackling the second wave of COVID-19. Gujarat had witnessed massive shortage of oxygen and ICU beds during the peak of the second wave. Daily cases touched the 14,000-mark. A change in leadership at that point in time would have meant that the party had accepted the failure to control COVID-19.
In his resignation letter, Rupani thanked the party for giving him an opportunity. He specifically thanked Modi for special guidance. Rupani said that his resignation would give chance to a new person and they would work together under the leadership of Modi.
While all eyes are now on who takes over from Rupani, equally interesting will be to see if the party decides to promote deputy chief minister Nitin Patel or not. In case Patel is not made the chief minister, it will be also interesting to see what role he would get in new scheme of things.
Things are expected to get clear by Sunday on whether the BJP continues with the experiment of having a deputy chief minister or goes ahead with only the chief minister.
In his reaction, opposition leader in the state assembly Paresh Dhanani said that Vijay Rupani-led Government was a remote-controlled government and that the BJP leadership has made him a scapegoat to hide their failures.
