Twenty-four MLAs were sworn in as ministers on Thursday, days after Bhupendra Patel was picked to replace Vijay Rupani as Gujarat’s chief minister. None of the ministers in the Rupani cabinet, including deputy chief minister Nitin Patel, education minister Bhupendrasinh Chudasama, and home minister Pradipsinh Jadeja, have been included in the new government.
The 24 MLAs were administered the oath of office and secrecy by Gujarat Governor Acharya Devvrat at the Raj Bhavan on Thursday afternoon. The new cabinet includes ten cabinet ministers and 14 ministers of state.
Rajendra Trivedi was sworn in as a cabinet minister just hours after his resignation as the assembly speaker. Former state BJP president Jitu Vaghani, Rishikesh Patel, Purnesh Modi, Raghavji Patel, Kanubhai Desai, Kiritsinh Rana, Naresh Patel, Pradip Parmar, and Arjunsinh Chauhan were also sworn in as cabinet ministers.
Harsh Sanghvi, Jagdish Panchal, Brijesh Merja, Jitu Chaudhary, and Manisha Vakil were sworn in as ministers of state with independent charge.
Mukesh Patel, Nimisha Suthar, Arvind Raiyani, Kuber Dindor, Kiritsinh Vaghela, Gajendrasinh Parmar, RC Makwana, Vinod Moradiya, and Devabhai Malam were sworn in as ministers of state.
The new cabinet was sworn in in the presence of CM Bhupendra Patel, former CM Vijay Rupani, former deputy CM Nitin Patel, and others.
The new cabinet’s first meeting is slated to place at 4:30 pm today, according to a tweet by the Gujarat chief minister’s office. The allocation of portfolios to the new ministers is also expected later today.