By most conventional measures, 60-year-old Vijay Rupani has nothing in his track record to have beaten out Nitin Patel to become Gujarat's chief minister. After all, Patel is senior to Rupani, a member of a politically significant community, has grassroots support, is the most senior cabinet minister and has held a variety of positions.
But when Vijay Rupani speaks, his voice carrying the sing-song cadences of Saurashtra, he more than compensates for all the experience of his new junior. After all, the Bharatiya Janata Party government in Gujarat at the moment doesn’t need a rustic, low-key housekeeper at the State Secretariat: it needs a leader with a TV face who is always accessible.
Rupani's political CV doesn't have much depth. But his PR skills match those of Prime Minister Prime Minister Narendra Modi and national party chief Amit Shah.
Smiling ear-to-ear, Rupani had insisted to the media that his focus was completely on the party organisation and would continue where he is as state BJP president. By contrast, the naive Nitin Patel in a series of media interviews had already listed what his priorities would be as chief minister. Now, the roles have been reversed. Patel has been telling all and sundry that he is a loyal party soldier and will do what was assigned to him.
Since Rupani is from the minority Jain-Baniya community, he does not have a caste advantage. But this might be used to show him as caste-neutral while dealing with the Gujarat's increasingly angry Dalits and Patels. The state's Dalits have been increasingly assertive since four members of their community were brutally assaulted last month, while the Patel community has been violently demanding quotas in government jobs and educational institutions. Rupani's diplomatic talents will be put to use here. One constituency to which he is immediately acceptable is urban Gujarat.
Rangoon-born Rupani moved to Rajkot with his parents when he was four. He started his political career as an activist of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh-backed Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad student organisation in 1971. He has a reputation of being a disciplined worker for the Sangh Parivar.
He became councillor in Rajkot Municipal Corporation in 1987 and in 1996 went on to become Mayor of Rajkot, the commercial capital of Saurashtra-Kutch region (and now the epicentre of the Dalit uprising). As the head of the BJP in the region, he played a key role in the victory of saffron party in the past three assembly elections.
Rupani was a member of the Rajya Sabha for six years from 2006 and in 2014 became MLA from Rajkot.
His suave nature attracted Narendra Modi to make him the chairman of the Tourism Corporation of Gujarat from 2006 to 2012. He began hardselling the state as a tourist destination with Amitabh Bachchan as its brand ambassador. "Kuch Din to Gujaro Gujarat Me," was the slogan he pushed. Spend a little time in Gujarat.
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