Bhupendra Patel will replace Vijay Rupani as the chief minister of Gujarat, with just more than a year to go for elections in the state. Bhupendra Patel is an elected representative from the Ghatlodiya assembly constituency in Gujarat. He had won by a margin of over 1,17,000 votes against Shashikant Patel from the Congress party. The meeting to decide a successor of Vijay Rupani began at 3pm in the presence of central observers Narendra Singh Tomar and Prahlad Joshi a day after Vijay Rupani tendered his resignation to the governor. He will stake claim to form the government in a meeting with state governor Acharya Devvrat later in the day, and the date of taking the oath will be decided later.
The new CM was picked a day after Rupani, 65, abruptly resigned from his post without giving any reasons. Elections are due to the 182-member Gujarat assembly in December 2022.Rupani is the third BJP CM to demit office during the last three months. In Karnataka, BS Yediyurappa resigned as chief minister on July 26 with nearly two years to go before his tenure ended in 2023. And in Uttarakhand, Tirath Singh Rawat resigned as chief minister on July 2. State BJP chief CR Paatil, who was also believed to be one of the contenders dismissed the speculation on Saturday and said he was not in the race. "Vijay Rupani has resigned from his post today. Naturally, there are a lot of names in the media for the new Chief Minister, including my name. I want to make it clear that I am not in any such race. Together with the new chief minister appointed by the party and Vijay Rupani, we will achieve our target of winning 182 out of 182 seats in the next assembly elections and work to strengthen the party," Paatil said.