Gujarat CM Bhupendra Patel is welcomed at the BJP office in Ahmedabad after the party wins the Gujarat Assembly elections on Thursday. (Express Photo: Nirmal Harindran)
The record mandate of 156 seats might give the BJP room to experiment in the new BJP government under CM Bhupendra Patel but it might also have to do the delicate balancing act between regions, castes, age and competence as it forms the seventh government ahead of the Lok Sabha elections in 2024.
From Harsh Sanghavi, an MLA from Majura seat that falls in state president CR Paatil’s Lok Sabha constituency, and Shankar Chaudhary, the chairman of Banas Dairy and a former minister in the Anandiben Patel government, to Rushikesh Patel, who held the important health portfolio in the outgoing government even as the Covid pandemic was on, and Amit Thaker, the former national president of the party’s youth wing, the list of leaders who could make it to the new ministry is not short.
The two Assembly seats falling under the Lok Sabha constituency of state BJP president C R Paatil, Surat East and Limbayat, saw a tough contest. (File)
With the BJP holding on to Gujarat with its highest margin ever, the spotlight is on the role its state chief Chandrakant Raghunath Paatil, popularly known as CR Paatil, will assume going forward.
Paatil, who was appointed state chief in July 2020, first set a target of winning “all 182 seats” in the state. The party went on to reconfigure this around the 1985’s Congress’s record of 149 seats, and eventually surpassed the count by winning 156, including the seven in the Navrasi Lok Sabha constituency that Paatil represents.
BJP functionaries that spoke to The Indian Express said they believed that the party high command will certainly be giving Paatil “a bigger role, most probably at the national level”.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the BJP headquarters in New Delhi on Thursday after the election results. (Express Photo by Tashi Tobgyal)
With Gujarat voting the BJP back for the seventh straight time, this election has made history in the state: it gave the party over 50 per cent of the popular vote and the highest seat tally in the House at 150 plus minus a ‘Hindutva wave’ but at the same time making room for a new political party in the Opposition space.
The key takeaways of the 2022 election are the formidable, undiminished sway Prime Minister Narendra Modi holds over his home state; the readiness of a section of the voters to accept an “outsider,” and the rejection of the fatigued Congress.
Many leaders in the BJP, including Union Home Minister Amit Shah, had dismissed the Aam Aadmi Party arguing that Gujarat never made space for a third front and that the fight would be confined to BJP vs Congress.
CM Bhupendra Patel meets supporters at his Ghatlodiya constituency office after party's victory in Gujarat state elections on Thursday. (Express photo by Nirmal Harindran)
In BJP Gujarat domination, 74% candidates lost deposit, 42 of Cong, 128 of AAP
The landslide victory of the BJP, capturing 52.5% of the vote share in Gujarat, also meant that as many as 42 Congress candidates and 128 of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) forfeited their deposits. In 19 seats where the BJP won by huge margins, both the Congress and AAP lost their deposits.
Such was the scale of the BJP victory that more than 1,200 of the 1,621 candidates in the race lost their deposits, though official figures from the Election Commission are awaited.
Although the AAP got 12.92% of the votes, won 5 seats and was at number two in 35, it got less than a sixth of the total votes polled in over 70% of the 181 seats it contested. The Congress, which got 27.28% of the votes, and 17 seats, did not manage to reach one-sixth of the votes polled in 42 seats.
BJP president J P Nadda at Parliament, Friday. (Express Photo by Anil Sharma)
The BJP’s record-breaking victory in Gujarat illustrates the success of its booth micromanagement, complimenting the popularity and trust PM Narendra Modi enjoys among the electorate. Over in Himachal Pradesh, the absence of a similar strategy and organisational failure to effect timely changes could have cost it the state.
In Gujarat, Modi campaigned extensively, building on the organisational strategy devised by Union Home Minister Amit Shah and the ground prepared by state unit president C R Paatil. A senior party leader said: “Micromanagement is the BJP’s style, but in Gujarat, the entry of the Aam Aam Party, splitting the anti-BJP votes, helped. Rahul Gandhi’s disengagement with the anti-BJP movement in the state and the local Congress leadership’s disinterest just added to it.”
Gujarat swearing-in ceremony. (Express photo by Nirmal Harindran)
Raghavji Patel is the first incumbent agriculture minister in the past 20 years to not lose election while holding that portfolio. Parsottam Rupala, Bupendra Patel, Dilip Sanghani and Chiman Sapariya had failed to retain their seats in 2002, 2007, 2012 and 2017 respectively while holding agriculture portfolio.
Praful Panseriya (Patidar- leuva Patel), who hailed from Saurashtra and settled in Surat runs media publicity business, and real estate. Panseriya has been associated with BJP for a long time. He earlier municipal councillor from Kamrej, and later he contested assembly election from Kamrej seat in 2012 and turned up victorious. IN 2017 elections he was denied ticket and on his seat, BJP leaders gave ticket to V D Zhalavadiya, who turned up winner. Even after denial of ticket, Panseriya remained active in the party activities. He also runs NGO named Young Gujarat Federation who does social and community service works. Panseriya is known as a cool minded person and has humbleness in nature, as mentioned by his close people. Even during Patidar quota agitation in 2015 which had great impact in Surat, Panseriya kept himself away from it. He was made incharge of Dangs seat in 2022. Praful Panseriya was again given ticket from BJP on Kamrej seat and he turned up victorious in 2022. The arch-rival candidate Ram Dhaduk of AAP got over 1.10 votes on Kamrej seat.
Kunwarji Halpati had made history by winning from Mandvi assembly seat in Surat district in 2022 Assembly elections. The Mandvi seat was with Congress since independence and it is first time the seat went to BJP.
Halpati, a principal (who took VRS) of a grant in-aid secondary school of Mandvi. He was earlier Surat district Congress president and was close to Dr. Tushar Chaudhary (former union minister in UPA government). Tushar Chaudhary gave him ticket from Bardoli seat in 2007 elections and got elected as MLA. The Bardoli seat which was earlier ST (schedule tribe) seat was changed to ST (Schedule caste) in 2012 elections. He tried to contest election from Gandevi (ST) seat in Navsari district, and his wish was turned down. Halpati later left Congress and joined BJP in 2013 and was made chairman of Tribal Development Corporation of Gujarat. In 2017 assembly elections, he again tried to get ticket from Mandvi seat in BJP, but he was denied. He found then state cabinet minister BJP leader of Surat district, Ganpat Vasava’s had played role for not giving him ticket. Halpati later filed his candidature form as independent candidate from Mangrol and Mandvi seats of Surat district in 2017 assembly elections and lost on both seats.
After C R Paatil became president of State BJP, and Bhupendra Patel became new Chief minister of Gujarat, Halpati came closer to C R Paatil and due to his closeness, he got ticket from Mandvi seat. Halpati worked hard as the seat belong to the Congress since independence and turned up victorious. Kunwarji Halpati got 74502 votes defeating sitting Congress candidate and MLA Anand Chaudhary who got 56393 votes and AAP candidate Saynaben Gamit got 49108 votes. The tribals of surat district burnt fire crackers and distributed sweets after Halpati was inducted into the state cabinet ministry, on Monday afternoon.
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 legislative 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.
Read more here
OBC - 7
Patidar - 4
ST - 2
SC - 1
Brahmin - 1
Jain - 1
Rajput - 1
BJP leader Bhupendra Patel took oath as the Chief Minister of Gujarat for a second straight term in Gandhinagar on Monday. Patel was administered oath as the 18th Chief Minister of Gujarat by Governor Acharya Devvrat at a function held at the Helipad Ground inside the new secretariat complex in the state capital.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, BJP president JP Nadda, and the Chief Ministers of various BJP-ruled states, including Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath and his Madhya Pradesh counterpart Shivraj Singh Chouhan, attended the event.
Cabinet Ministers
Kanubhai Desai - Pardi
Rushikesh Patel - Visnagar
Raghavji Patel - Jamnagar Rural
Balvantsinh Rajput
Kunvarji Bavaliya - Jasdan
Mulu Bera - Khambhaliya
Kuber Dindor - Santrampur
Bhanuben Babariya - Rajkot Rural
Mos (Independent Charge)
Harsh Sanghavi - Majura
Jagdish Vishwakarma - Nikol
MoS
Purushottam Solanki - Bhavnagar Rural
Bachubhai Khabad - Devgadh Baria
Mukesh Patel - Olpad
Praful Panseriya - Kamrej
Bhikhusinh Parmar - Modasa
Kunvarji Halpati - Mandvi (Surat)
1) Parshottam Solanki
2) Bachubhai Khabad
3)Mukesh Patel
4) Praful Panseriya
5) Bhiku Parmar
6) Kunwarji Halpati
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Bhupendra Patel on Monday took oath as the Chief Minister of Gujarat for a second straight term in Gandhinagar in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Patel was administered the oath as the 18th chief minister by Governor Acharya Devvrat at a function held at the Helipad Ground near the new Secretariat.
In the just-concluded Gujarat Assembly elections, counting for which was held on December 8, the BJP won a seventh straight term by winning record 156 seats in the 182-member House. The Congress won 17 constituencies and AAP 5.
Patel, 60, resigned as chief minister along with his entire cabinet on Friday to pave the way for the formation of a new government following the election results. (PTI)
1) Kanu Desai
2) Rushikesh Patel
3) Raghavji Patel
4) Balvantsinh Rajput
5) Kunwarjibhai Mohanbhai Bavaliya
6) Mulu Ayar Bera
7) Kuber Dindor
8) Bhanu Babariya
9) Harsh Sanghavi (Mos-Independent charge)
10) Jagdish Vishwakarma
11) Rajnikant Patel
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has arrived at the Helipad Ground inside the new secretariat complex in Gandhinagar. The swearing-in ceremony is expected to begin soon.
Former chief minister Vijay Rupani and his then deputy Nitin Patel have arrived at the Helipad Ground inside the new secretariat complex in the state capital.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP state president CR Paatil have arrived at the venue to take part in the swearing-in ceremony.
Re-elected ministers Harsh Sanghvi, Rushikesh Patel, Kanu Desai, Jagdish Vishwakarma, and Raghavji Patel are among those seated on the stage in an area reserved for those who will be sworn in.
Leaders from different BJP-led states and Union Ministers have already reached the venue for the oath-taking ceremony of Bhupendra Patel. Patel will be administered the oath as the 18th Chief Minister by Governor Acharya Devvrat at the Helipad Ground near the new Secretariat in Gandhinagar at 2 pm.
Talking to the reporters at the airport, Nagaland CM Neiphiu Rio said, "We've come here to celebrate the victory of Gujarat. In partnership, we are very much confident of winning polls (in Nagaland).''
"The Gujarat result will be repeated (in Karnataka). Gujarat's victory sends a message to all state governments that if you do development work then pro-incumbency can happen," said Karnataka Chief Minister Basavraj Bommai.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant, BJP National President J P Nadda, Maharashtra CM Eknath Shinde and Union Minister Smriti Irani, have already reached the venue. (ANI)
The oath-taking ceremony for the Gujarat Chief Minister will be held at 2 PM today in Gandhinagar today, where Bhupendra Patel will be sworn in for a second term. Following the BJP’s seventh consecutive victory in the state’s Legislative Assembly elections, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah and other senior ministers are expected to be present at the ceremony.
Patel, 60, first took the oath in September 2021 as the CM. More recently, he was elected as the leader of the BJP legislative 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. Read more
Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant has arrived in Gandhinagar to attend the swearing-in ceremony of CM-designate Bhupendra Patel.
"For the first time, BJP has got such a massive victory in Gujarat. I congratulate all party workers of Gujarat," he said. (ANI)
Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai and his Nagaland counterpart Neiphiu Rio have reached Gandhinagar to attend the swearing-in ceremony of CM-designate Bhupendra Patel
"It (the victory in Gujarat) will be repeated in Karnataka. Gujarat's victory sends a message to all state governments that if you carry out developmental works, then pro-incumbency can happen," Bommai said.
"We have come here to celebrate the victory of Gujarat. In partnership, we are very much confident of winning polls in Nagaland," Neiphiu Rio said. (ANI)
Ahead of the oath-taking ceremony, BJP MLA Hardik Patel said: "I am a very young MLA. I only believe in working for the party. BJP will decide who they want to keep in the Cabinet. I will happily accept whatever responsibility the party decides to give me." (ANI)
As many as 32 industrialists have been invited to the swearing-in ceremony in Gujarat. It is learnt that 28 of them have confirmed their attendance.
Gautam Adani (Adani Group), Sudhir Mehta (Torrent Group), Parimal Nathwani (Reliance Industries), Sanjay Lalbhai (Arvind Group), and Savji Dholakia (Hari Krishna Exports) will be among the attendees.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde will attend BJP leader Bhupendra Patel's swearing-in ceremony, in Gandhinagar on Monday afternoon. The ceremony is scheduled to be held at the Helipad Ground inside the new secretariat complex in the state capital at 2 pm.
Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai left for Gandhinagar on Monday morning to take part in BJP leader Bhupendra Patel's swearing-in ceremony. At least 20 chief ministers of BJP-ruled states are expected to attend the ceremony.
Union Minister and BJP leader Sarbananda Sonowal on Monday credited Prime Minister Narendra Modi's leadership for the party's historic win in the Gujarat Assembly polls. The former Assam chief minister spoke to reporters at the Ahmedabad airport as he reached the city for the oath-taking ceremony of Bhupendra Patel as the next Gujarat Chief Minister.
Sonowal said: "It is certain that India will become the best nation in the world under the leadership of Prime Minister Modi and with continued development..., we are moving fast in that very direction."
Taking a dig at the Congress, the BJP leader said: "Congress handled the government in different states and at the Centre for almost 60 years. They could not do anything even after getting the opportunity for such a long time."
Sonowal exuded confidence, as he said: "The BJP government will be formed again in 2024 under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The people of India will now support Prime Minister Narendra Modi only." (ANI)
After newly elected Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLA from Visavadar constituency Bhupendra Bhayani indicated on Sunday that he might join the BJP, speculations were rife that all five AAP MLAs would join the saffron party. However, calling it a “rumour”, AAP MLA from Jamjodhpur, Hemant Ahir, and party general secretary Manoj Sorathiya said that none of them was going to join the BJP.
The party also released a video in the evening in which Bhayani was seen saying that he “is a loyal soldier of the AAP”.
“It is a rumour… we are not going to join (BJP). Three days ago, we were speaking against the BJP and would we join it now? It would raise a question mark on our political career… Some people spread the rumours in collusion with the BJP… It is false,” Ahir told The Indian Express. Read more
Bhupendra Patel, the incumbent Chief Minister of Gujarat, was Saturday unanimously elected the leader of the legislative party at the meeting of 156 BJP MLAs held at Shree Kamalam, the party headquarters, in Gandhinagar. Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, former Karnataka CM BS Yediyurappa and Tribal Affairs minister Arjun Munda were the central observers at the meeting.
According to BJP office-bearers, Pardi MLA Kanu Desai formally proposed Patel’s name. Speaking to media persons after the meeting at Shree Kamalam concluded, Patel said: “Today, during the meeting of the BJP MLAs, I have once again been handed over the responsibility to lead the party. The government and the organisation will work together.” Read more
With 105 new entrants, 14 women and one Muslim, in addition to the 77 sitting MLAs who have been re-elected, the 15th Legislative Assembly of Gujarat is all set to be a mix of fresh faces and experienced hands.
Among the new faces will be Rivaba Jadeja—a businesswoman and the wife of cricketer Ravindra Jadeja—who won from the Jamnagar North constituency by more than 50,000 votes. There were 13 women MLAs in the 14th Assembly, while the preceding Assembly had a record 17 women MLAs.
Apart from Rivaba, there are two other businesswomen—Rita Patel and Malti Maheshwari. Rita is the newly elected BJP MLA from Gandhinagar North seat which covers the state’s capital. A builder by profession, she is the mayor of Gandhinagar Municipal Corporation. Maheshwari, who won from the Gandhidham seat, is into logistics business. Read full report by Avinash Nair here
Of the 182 candidates who won the Gujarat Assembly elections this time, 40 (22 per cent) have declared criminal cases against them in their affidavits, a decline from 47 candidates with criminal cases in 2017 elections, according to a report by the Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR) released Sunday.
Among the 182 new MLAs, BJP’s Hardik Patel who won from Viramgam seat has the highest number of criminal cases against him at 22, of which 16 are serious IPC counts.
This is followed by Congress’ Jignesh Mevani from Vadgam constituency with 10 criminal cases, including nine serious IPC counts, Congress’ Kiritkumar Patel elected from Patan constituency with nine criminal cases of which seven are serious charges, and Chaitarbhai Vasava, AAP candidate from Dediapada in Narmada with eight criminal cases, including four serious IPC counts. Read more
A total of 151, or 83 per cent, of the 182 MLAs elected in the recent Assembly polls in Gujarat are ‘crorepatis’ (worth over Rs 1 crore), up from 141 in the 2017 polls, as per a study conducted by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and Gujarat Election Watch.
The study showed the ruling BJP has 132 crorepati MLAs, followed by 14 of the Congress, all three Independents, and one each of the Aam Aadmi Party and the Samajwadi Party.
The BJP won the seventh straight term in Gujarat by winning a record 156 seats in the 182-member House. Read more
Never has Punjab waited so anxiously for the results of assembly elections in Gujarat. With 92 of its legislators, including its chief minister, and scores of district-level functionaries spending days, if not months, canvassing for AAP in the western state, many in the state polity were heavily invested in it.
While the party, a first-timer in the state, may have won five out of 182 states, its Punjab unit is taking pride in the fact that they managed to introduce the party to every nook and cranny in Gujarat. The idea of doing a Bharat jodo of another kind by sending party workers from Punjab to Gujarat was the brainchild of Rajya Sabha MP Sandeep Pathak, who was made the party in charge for Gujarat soon after it swept Punjab.
Malwinder Singh Kang, an AAP leader, says Pathak decided to start from the countryside. “He got in touch with the pradhan/mukhiya of every village besides tapping opinion leaders.’’ Read more
One of the takeaways from the Congress’s debacle in the Gujarat Assembly election is that it no longer has the hold over minority votes like before.
Though Gujarat has never elected a lot of Muslim MLAs — the three who won in 2017 were the most to have entered the House since 1995 — the Congress used to bank on the minority vote in several constituencies. This pattern seems to have changed in the recent election, with the Congress not only losing the seats it had gained in the 2017 Assembly polls but also suffering losses in some of its bastions, many of which have a sizable Muslim population. The Congress’s vote share in several of these constituencies dropped almost 10 per cent.
The only Muslim legislator now is Imran Khedawala of the Congress who retained Jamalpur-Khadia in Ahmedabad. However, Khedawala’s victory margin dropped from 29,000 votes to 13,600. The MLA had told The Indian Express in an interview that the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) would affect his margin and vote share, which plummeted from 58 per cent to 46 per cent. Read full Political Pulse by Aditi Raja, Sohini Ghosh, and Gopal B Kateshiya here
The final scores in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh, and a day earlier, in the Municipal Corporation of Delhi, were writ large this week. The AAP won MCD and Congress wrested Himachal, but it was the BJP victory in Gujarat that is the big political story.
After 27 years, a 7th straight term, with 156 seats out of 182 and a 52.5 per cent vote share — those are the numbers that are the most telling. They loom over the AAP’s MCD win and Congress in Himachal, both narrow victories. Read full Opinion piece by Vandita Mishra here
At least 20 chief ministers of BJP-ruled states are expected to be guests when Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel takes oath for the second consecutive term on Monday, at a grand function in the state capital in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah.
Patel will be administered oath as the 18th chief minister of Gujarat by Governor Acharya Devvrat at the ceremony to be held at the Helipad Ground inside the new secretariat complex in Gandhinagar. The new council of ministers will also be sworn-in at the function.
BJP national president JP Nadda and 10-15 union ministers are also likely to attend the ceremony. Read more
Welcome to our live blog. Stay tuned as we bring you latest news updates from across the state of Gujarat as BJP leader Bhupendra Patel is set to take oath as the Chief Minister of Gujarat for a second straight term, in Gandhinagar on Monday in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah.