New faces in new Gujarat government

The Chief Minister-elect, Vijay Rupani, and his deputy, Nitin Patel, will get young members of their team to run the state government this time. BJP leaders are of the opinion that young members in the cabinet may leave a good impression on the common people. The government may have at least seven to eight young faces this time.

The young faces that may find a place in the Rupani's cabinet are BJP's Gujarat president Jitu Vaghani, Vibhavari Dave, Shashikant Pandya, Hitu Kanodia, Manisha Vakil, Ishwar Parmar, and Dushyant Patel. These all leaders are of the age of 40 to 45 years. These elected candidates of BJP can hold different portfolios as minister of state (MoS). Whereas the former cabinet minister Jayesh Radadiya, 34, also is the young leader who is believed to be repeated as cabinet level minister in this government.

A senior leader of BJP said, "The party believes that there should be a combination of experienced and young members in cabinet of Gujarat government. The young members may have fresh ideas and zeal to work with efficiency. Another reason to bring in more young faces is that many of our senior leaders have lost in the polls, who could have been made ministers otherwise."

"We had selected around 8 to 10 members who may be in the cabinet and sent that list to the high command. The high command will take the final call on the selection, but it is the ideology of BJP to give more chance to young leaders who can influence the masses," added the senior leader.

Besides the young members, there are several senior MLAs who could have been included in the cabinet of the Gujarat government. Some such faces are Ganpat Vasava, Babu Bokhiria, RC Faldu, Saurabh Patel, Kaushik Patel, Pradipsinh Jadeja as cabinet-level ministers while Dr Nimaben Acharya, Vasan Ahir, Parbat Patel, Rajendrasinh Chavda, Karsan Solanki, Vallabh Kakadia, Pankaj Desai, CK Raulji, Jaydhrathsinh Parmar, Bachu Khabad, Kishor Kanani and Raman Patkar may get the place in cabinet as minister of state.

Fresh faces

The new faces that may find a place in the Cabinet are Jitu Vaghani, Vibhavari Dave, Shashikant Pandya, Hitu Kanodia, Manisha Vakil, Ishwar Parmar, and Dushyant Patel.