Vijay Rupani will continue as the chief minister of Gujarat, the Bharatiya Janata Party announced on Friday. Nitin Patel will stay on as the state’s deputy chief minister.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who was the Centre’s observer for the Gujarat elections, made the announcement after a BJP core committee meeting in Gandhinagar. He said all MLAs at the meeting made the unanimous decision to choose Rupani and Patel to lead the state legislature.
Rupani won the election from the Rajkot West constituency, and Patel won the Mehsana seat.
“Team Gujarat is fully prepared and committed to fulfill expectations and aspirations of the people from all strata, irrespective of their caste, religion, profession or practice,” Rupani wrote on Twitter soon after the announcement.
He also thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP National nPresident Amit Shah for “reposing trust and confidence in a humble karyakarta [worker] like me”.
Patel promised good governance. “I want assure the Gujarat public that Vijay bhai and I will continue to work for the people,” Patel said, according to The Indian Express.
The BJP won power in Gujarat for the sixth time in a row, but only by a narrow margin. The Congress made significant strides by winning 77 seats and succeeded in taking over a large part of the rural Patidar-dominated belt of Gujarat’s Saurashtra region. The BJP won 99 seats in the 182-member Assembly.
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