Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) announced Bhupendra Patel as Gujarat’s new chief minister, Patel congratulated the successor of Vijay Rupani and dismissed media reports speculative of him being considered for the CM post.
When Anandiben Patel resigned from the top post, Nitin Patel was among the front runner to be the CM, but then party president Amit Shah had his way go get Vijay Rupani as the CM.
In 2017, when Rupani was re-elected as the chief minister, Nitin Patel expressed his displeasure openly over the allocation of portfolios and refused to take charge of the ones allotted to him. He took charge of them only after the intervention of the top party leadership and allocation of finance portfolio to him.
On Sunday, too, there were speculations that Nitin Patel was unhappy over him not being selected as the CM.
“The new chief minister Bhupendra Patel is our friend, he is among us and he is a karyakarta like all of us. We have worked together in the past and his name has been chosen as the CM by the party.
He is my friend, I have inaugurated his office, let anyone think anything about us. The media can speculate anything. I told them (media) in the morning that your job is to speculate, but the decision will be taken by the party,” said Patel.
“ I saw media stories about whether I will be ousted now. I want to state that till the time I am in the hearts of the public, karyakartas and voters, nobody can oust me. I have served in the opposition for a long time and have worked for the party for 30 years,” Patel added.