Gandhinagar, March 2 A Congress MLA from Lathi (Amreli), Virji Thummar, on Monday said if the disgruntled Deputy Chief Minister of Gujarat, Nitin Patel, defects and joins Congress, bringing along with him 15 others, then the Congress was ready to make him the Gujarat Chief Minister.
The Congress MLA was speaking in the Assembly on the discussion of health department's proposals for the budget 2020-21. Thummar said, "The Health Minister, who is also the Deputy Chief Minister, Nitin Patel, is doing a good job and we support him. But their own party does not. I offer him to defect to Congress along with 15 other BJP members and we will be ready to make him the Chief Minister of Gujarat."
In reply, Nitin Patel told the House, "I don't want to go anywhere. Congress should stop daydreaming. I have been misinterpreted."
Patel was referring to his speech on February 29 at the stone-laying ceremony of 'Maa Umiya Temple' the proposed tallest temple to be built in Ahmedabad. He had said: "I have reached here at this junction only because of the blessings of Maa. Otherwise everybody knows that I am on the one side, whereas everybody else is on the other side."
Patel told the House on Monday that whatever he had said was in the context of the temple functioning.
In the 182-member Assembly, the BJP has 103 seats and the Congress 73.
( With inputs from )