Bhupendra Patel has been sworn in for a second term as the Chief Minister of Gujarat, following the BJP’s seventh consecutive victory in the state’s Legislative Assembly elections. Patel, 60, first took the oath in September 2021 as the CM, replacing Vijay Rupani. More recently, he was elected as the leader of the BJP legislature party on Saturday, following which he met the governor and staked the claim to form the next government. He won the Ghatlodia seat, part of the Gandhinagar Lok Sabha constituency, with the highest margin of 1.92 lakh votes in the elections. In the new 17-member Bhupendra Patel BJP cabinet that was sworn in today, there are seven OBC ministers ; four Patidars; two from the Scheduled Tribe Community, and one each from the Scheduled Caste, Brahmin, Jain and Rajput communities. Cabinet Ministers Rushikesh Patel A native of Sundhhiya village in Mehsana, Rushikesh Patel has done a diploma in Civil Engineering and is associated with the construction business. A four-time MLA, Patel is also the president of Mehsana District Cricket Association. He is an active member of the Visnagar Agriculture Produce Market Committee. Patel’s Visnagar constituency was in the news in 2015 when a Patidar rally seeking OBC status for the community, led by Hardik Patel, had turned violent and vandalized Patel’s office while also setting it on fire. He has previously served as the minister of Health & Family Welfare, Medical Education. Raghavji Patel A seven-time MLA from Jamnagar district, Raghavji was born in a Leuva Patel family. He joined the Congress in 1975 and contested his first Assembly election against Keshubhai Patel in 1985 from Kalavad seat in Jamnagar district as a Congress candidate but lost. He then defected to BJP and served as a minister in governments of Suresh Mehta, Shankersinh Vaghela and Dilip Parikh. In 1999, he returned to Congress and won Assembly elections in 2007 and 2012. He defected to the BJP for a second time in 2017 but lost the election. Later he won the bypoll as a BJP nominee. He holds a degree in law and besides agriculture, he’s also associated with educational institutes. Balvantsinh Chandansinh Rajput A BJP candidate from Sidhpur, Rajput moved from the Congress to BJP in 2017. He has declared his business, trade, agriculture, and rent as sources of income. Kunwarjibhai Mohanbhai Bavaliya The Koli leader switched over to the BJP in 2018 after quitting the Congress. He was a water supply minister in the Vijay Rupani government. Bavaliya lost his Cabinet berth after Rupani resigned in September last year and was left out of the Bhupendra Patel government. Bavaliya won his seventh poll, handing BJP its first ever victory from Jasdan. Kanu Desai Kanu Desai is a graduate and an Anavil Brahmin. He started his career as assistant manager with United Phosphorus Limited (UPL) in Vapi and became the general manager before retiring. Before joining the government, he was the director of Corporate Affairs at UPL. He was the finance minister in the first Bhupendra Patel administration. Desai has been active in the BJP since 2008 and won from Pardi for the third time in a row. Mulu Bera Mulubhai Hardasbhai Bera, or Mulu Bera, is a former minister who won from Khambhalia in Devbhumi Dwarka district, defeating AAP's Gujarat chief ministerial candidate Isudan Gadhvi, getting nearly 41% of the votes. He also trounced in the process old rival and sitting Congress MLA Vikrambhai Maadam. Bera, 57, was the chairperson of the Gujarat Rural Housing Board till around a year ago. During the elections, the presence of Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) Director, Corporate Affairs, and Rajya Sabha MP from Andhra Pradesh, Parimal Nathwani, with Bera, when he went to file his nominations from Khambhalia on Monday, had raised eyebrows. Kuber Dindor Dindor served as the Minister of State for Higher and Technical Education, Science, and Parliamentary Affairs in the first term of the Bhupendra Patel government from September 2021. An MLA from the Santrampur Assembly Constituency of Mahisagar district. Dindor holds a PhD from Sardar Patel University and has completed an MA degree from LD Arts College in Ahmedabad. He is also associated with educational institutions in Santrampur. In his affidavit, he declared assets worth Rs 2.3 crores. Dindor’s personal website describes his “values”, which are in line with the BJP. It says: “Bharatiya Janata Party is committed to Hindutva, an ideology articulated by Indian independence activist Vinayak Damodar Savarkar. Hindutva is cultural nationalism favouring Indian culture over westernisation, thus it extends to all Indians regardless of religion.” Bhanuben Babariya A sitting corporator in the Rajkot Municipal Corporation, Babariya won the Rajkot Rural (SC) seat for third time. She was elected from this seat in 2007 and 2012 before being dropped by the BJP. After spending four years on the sidelines, the BJP gave her ticket to contest the RMC election and she won. Her father-in-law Madhubhai Babariya too was elected MLA from this seat in 1998. Minister of State (Independent Charge) Harsh Sanghavi Sanghavi is Gujarat’s Home Minister and contested from the Majura seat for the third consecutive time and won with a margin of 1.16 lakh votes, defeating Congress and AAP candidates. He belongs to the Jain community and is the son of a diamond merchant in Surat. He was made the state general secretary of Bharatiya Janta Yuva Morcha (BJYM) in 2010 and also served as the national vice-president of BJYM in 2017. He was the youngest candidate of the BJP in the state to win the 2012 Assembly polls. Sanghavi is close to state BJP president CR Paatil. Jagdish Vishwakarma Vishwakarma, who has been the president of the BJP’s Ahmedabad unit, was one of the key members of the previous cabinet, serving the industries, forest & environment, protocol and roads & buildings portflios. He defeated the Congress’s Ranjitsinh Barad from the Nikol constituency with a margin of over 55,000 votes and finds himself a spot in the cabinet again. Ministers of State Purushottam Solanki An MLA from Bhavnagar Rural and a prominent Koli leader, he has defeated his Congress leader Revantsinh Gohil by 73,484 votes. Solanki has been a former fisheries minister in the Narendra Modi government and was accused of a Rs 400 crores fisheries scam in 2008. In his affidavit, he has listed his profession as a farmer and a developer. He has Three criminal cases aganst him, including a corruption case in Gandhinagar. Bachubhai Khabad Khabad is a four term MLA from Devgadh Baria Assembly Constituency and has previously served as a Minister of State for Fisheries, Forest and Environment in Anandiben Patel cabinet in 2014. Khabad defeated the AAP’s Bharatsinh Vakhala by a margin of close to 50000 votes. Incidentally, Vakhala was the Congress candidate contesting against Khabad in 2017 and had then lost by a margin of over 45,000 votes. Khabad has declared assets worth Rs 92 lakhs. Mukesh Patel An MLA from Olpad in the Surat district, Patel belongs to the Koli Patel community. He is a farmer and contractor and was a personal assistant to former Olpad BJP MLA Kiritbhai Patel in 2007. Owing to his closeness with BJP Durat MP and Union minister of state for railways and textiles, Darshana Jardosh, he was fielded from Olpad in 2012 and won. He won again from the same seat in 2017. Kunwarji Halpati Halpati had won the Mandvi seat this year, which had been a Congress bastian since independence. Halpati, a principal who took Voluntary Retirement Service of a secondary school of Mandvi, was earlier the Surat district Congress president. He was close to Dr. Tushar Chaudhary (former union minister in UPA government), who had given him a ticket from Bardoli in 2007. He won the seat. Bhikhusinh Parmar First-time MLA Parmar was elected from the Modasa constituency of the Aravalli district in north Gujarat and has defeated the Congress’s sitting MLA Rajendrasinh Thakor with a margin of over 34,500 votes. Parmar is from an OBC community. As per his affidavit, his professions are farming and animal husbandry. Praful Panseriya Panseriya, originally from the Saurashtra region, runs a media publicity and real estate businesses in Surat. He is from the Leuva Patidar community and has been associated with BJP for a long time. A former municipal councillor, he contested and won his first Assembly election from the Kamrej seat in 2012. In 2017, he was denied a ticket, but Panseriya remained active in the party activities. He runs an NGO named Young Gujarat Federation. He won again from Kamrej in 2022.
