Changing Gujarat CM now would make no sense -Governance Now

Changing Gujarat CM now would make no sense

Vijay Rupani-Nitin Patel team to continue in the new term

GN Bureau | December 22, 2017

#Narendra Modi #BJP #Politics #Elections #Gujarat #Vijay Rupani

Speculation is over, as senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley announced in Gandhinagar Friday that Vijay Rupani will continue as chief minister of Gujarat, along with Nitin Patel as his deputy. The speculation was needless: it made little sense for the party to change the leader at this stage.

With the December 19 verdict of the Gujarat assembly elections showing a scary dip in the BJP’s popularity with only 99 seats in its bag, there were unconfirmed reports that the party would name a new CM. The possible candidates for the post also started doing rounds, with the electronic media on Friday naming Vajubhai Vala (long-time state finance minister, former assembly speaker and now Karnataka governor), Mansukhbhai Mandviya (minister of state in the centre), Jeetu Vaghani (state party president), Nitin Patel (outgoing deputy CM) and others as possible contenders.

Logically speaking, Rupani was brought in only last year, in August, to counter a negative perception about Anandiben Patel, and there is no justification to remove him now that the elections are over. On the whole, popular perception about Rupani is not negative, even if he can’t match up to the role of Narendra Modi who was Gujarat CM for 13 years. His governance record is ok enough. Caste calculations – to bring in a Patel face at the top – do not apply any more now that vote is over.

Bringing in a new face makes sense to counter anti-incumbency. That was the logic to bring in Rupani a year ahead of elections, and also Modi himself a year before the 2002 elections, when Keshubhai Patel’s popularity was going down. That is not needed at this stage – though it may be very much needed ahead of the next elections in 2022.

Comments

Other News

Cabinet approves Mobile Phone Manufacturing Scheme

The union cabinet chaired by PM Narendra Modi has approved the Mobile Phone Manufacturing Scheme (MPMS) with a budgetary outlay of Rs 62,500 crore. It aims to further scale up the production, deepen domestic value addition, strengthen supply chain resilience, enhance global competitiveness. It

Building infrastructure is only half the job

Recent stories of stolen railway wires, disappearing communication towers and missing public infrastructure are often treated as bizarre law-and-order failures of India. Yet they raise a more fundamental question. Why does the State often discover the disappearance of a public asset only after it has alrea

New Delhi’s Indo-Pacific strategy enters a new phase

India appears to be investing fresh dynamism in its Indo-Pacific strategy. At the time when the US, under president Donald Trump, has adopted a conciliatory approach towards China and has changed the name of America’s Indo-Pacific Command to just Pacific Command, India has quietly moved towards con

CAG flags major fiscal lapses in Maharashtra

Maharashtra`s fiscal management has come under sharp scrutiny after the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India, in its State Finances Audit Report for 2024-25, flagged significant budgetary inefficiencies, accounting irregularities, understatement of key fiscal indicators and widespread governanc

The health sector research we are not doing

Some neglect is loud. This kind is quiet. It sits in research never commissioned, data never collected, questions never asked. In South Asia, that quiet has let the region’s worst health problems stay understudied, underfunded, and out of sight of those who could act.

Study flags accessibility and last-mile challenges on Mumbai Metro Aqua Line

Mumbai Metro Line 3 (Aqua Line), the city`s first fully underground metro corridor and one of its largest public transport investments, represents a major engineering achievement and has been widely welcomed by commuters. However, the overall commuter experience continues to be constrained by accessibili