‘If BJP gets majority…’: Amit Shah unveils face of Gujarat Chief Minister

The BJP is plan­ning a sev­enth con­sec­u­tive term in Gujarat, the home state of PM Modi and Amit Shah. (File)

Ahmed­abad:

Bhu­pen­dra Patel will remain Gujarat’s prime min­is­ter if the BJP wins a major­i­ty in next mon­th’s gen­er­al elec­tion, senior par­ty leader and Union inte­ri­or min­is­ter Amit Shah told CNN-News18 in Ahemdabad.

Mr Shah’s state­ment makes it clear that Mr Patel is the chief min­is­te­r­i­al can­di­date of the BJP, which is seek­ing a sev­enth con­sec­u­tive term in the home state of Prime Min­is­ter Naren­dra Modi and Mr Shah.

“If the BJP gets the major­i­ty in Gujarat, Bhu­pen­dra Patel will be the next prime min­is­ter,” Mr Shah told CNN-News18.

Mr Patel replaced Vijay Rupani as chief min­is­ter in Sep­tem­ber 2021, a move that sur­prised many.

He is the first-time MLA from the Ghat­lo­dia con­stituen­cy. He will be re-nom­i­nat­ed from the same seat.

Ear­li­er, the Aam Aad­mi par­ty, led by Arvind Kejri­w­al, declared par­ty leader Isu­dan Gad­hvi as prime min­is­te­r­i­al can­di­date after a “pub­lic poll”. Con­gress has decid­ed not to declare the chief min­is­ter’s face for the election.

Vot­ing for the 182 seats in Gujarat will take place in two phas­es on Decem­ber 1st and 5th. The count­ing of votes will begin on Decem­ber 8th.

In the 2017 polls, the BJP’s win tal­ly fell to two spots with 99, while Con­gress improved its per­for­mance with 77 seats.

With its aggres­sive cam­paign, AAP projects itself as the BJP’s main chal­lenger in the state, where polls have usu­al­ly remained a bilat­er­al con­test between the Saf­fron par­ty and Congress.

(Except for the head­line, this sto­ry was not edit­ed by NDTV staff and was pub­lished by a syn­di­cat­ed feed.)