- Tuesday, February 25, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
VIJAY Rupani, the chief minister of the western Indian state of Gujarat, on Saturday (11) stepped down from his post with the next elections in the state 15 months away.
The senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader later submitted his resignation to Acharya Devvrat, the state’s governor, at the Raj Bhavan, the latter’s official residence.
Rupani, who turned 65 last month, addressed a press conference following his sudden exit in which he said his resignation was in accordance with the “BJP tradition” of providing all party workers an equal opportunity.
“I am ready to serve in whichever the role the party assigns to me,” Rupani, who replaced Anandiben Patel in August 2016, said. He also added that he is committed to the vision of prime minister Narendra Modi.
Patel and Rupani were among the post-Modi leadership in Gujarat after he left for New Delhi to serve as the prime minister in 2014. Modi was the chief minister of Gujarat for more than 12 years starting October 2001.
“I want to thank BJP for giving me this opportunity to serve as Gujarat’s CM. During my tenure, I got the opportunity to add to the development of the state under PM Modi’s leadership,” he said.
Speculation was rife over who would succeed Rupani at a time when opposition parties like the Aam Aadmi Party and the Indian National Congress are expecting to throw some electoral challenges at the BJP, which is continuously in power in the state since the late 1990s.
According to sources, Indian health minister Manuskh Mandaviya, Gujarat deputy chief minister Nitin Patel and cabinet minister RC Faldu are among the frontrunners to become the state’s next executive chief. The BJP has reportedly called a meeting of its legislators in state capital Gandhinagar on September 12 where the name of the next chief minister would be further discussed.
The Congress took a dig at Rupani’s exit saying the BJP did not have confidence in their own chief minister.
“If the BJP is claiming that their government has performed well over the past four years, what was the need for an overnight change in leadership,” Congress working president Hardik Patel said while speaking to a news channel.
Rupani was the chief minister when the BJP registered a victory in the 2017 state elections, overcoming the Patidar quota challenge.
Rupani is the fourth BJP chief minister to resign in the current year after Uttrakhand’s Trivendra Singh Rawat and Tirath Rawat who replaced the former but did not survive too long and Karnataka’s BS Yediyurappa who stepped down in July to make way for the incumbent chief minister Basavaraj Bommai.
