Key ministers back in Gujarat CM's new Cabinet

Two days after taking oath, Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani and deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel announced portfolios for the new Cabinet of 18 other ministers on Thursday.
 

The new Cabinet saw some of the key experienced ministers regaining their past portfolios. Among these were Saurabh Patel who bagged finance and energy, while Bhupendra Chudasama retained education.

The announcement came after a delay of four hours on Thursday. However, Rupani had attributed this to a late approval from party high command who were debating on the Triple Talaq Bill in the Lok Sabha. 

Earlier, Saurabh Patel had been dropped when Rupani took charge for the first time as chief minister in 2016. Since then, Nitin Patel had held the finance portfolio. Apart from finance, Nitin Patel has also lost urban development and town planning as well as petrochemicals. 

Rupani kept for himself portfolios of industry, home, urban development, ports, mines and minerals, and petroleum, while Nitin Patel was given fresh portfolios of health and family welfare, besides retaining old portfolios of roads and buildings, and the Kalpasar yojana.

Chudasama’s key portfolio, revenue, went to newly-inducted minister Kaushik Patel, who was earlier in the Narendra Modi Cabinet between 2002 and 2007.
 

Former Bharatiya Janata Party president R C Faldu, who was inducted as a Cabinet minister, bagged agriculture and rural development, besides fisheries. Among the new entrants, Ishwarbhai Parmar was allotted social justice and the empowerment ministry.

Among ministers of state (MoS), Pradipsinh Jadeja retained his previous portfolio of home, law and justice. Jadeja bagged a new portfolio of energy. Having won from Varachha seat despite Patidar agitation and anti-establishment wave due to the goods and services tax, MoS Kishor Kanani from Surat was allotted health and family welfare as well as medical education.

Other ministers of state, including Jayesh Radadiya, Dilip Thakor and Ganpat Vasava, retained their previous portfolios of food and civil supplies, labour and employment, and forest, tribal development and tourism.

MoS Vibhavari Dave, the only female minister in Rupani’s new team bagged women and child welfare, along with primary and higher education.