The BJP-led Gujarat cabinet, with 25 newly-inducted ministers, was unveiled on Friday with Harsh Sanghavi taking oath as the deputy chief minister.
Sanghavi had secured a landslide victory in 2022 Assembly polls by defeating an AAP candidate by over 1 lakh votes. He took oath as Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel’s deputy at the Raj Bhavan in Gandhinagar in the presence of Governor Acharya Devvrat.
Sanghavi has held the portfolio of Minister of State (MoS) for Home in the last cabinet and is a three-time member of the Gujarat Legislative Assembly, representing the Majura Assembly constituency.
The new Cabinet includes several familiar faces, with six ministers — Rishikesh Patel, Kanubhai Desai, Kunwarji Bavaliya, Praful Panseria, Parshottam Solanki and Sanghavi himself – retaining their chairs.
Rivaba Jadeja, the wife of cricketer Ravindra Jadeja, also took oath as a state minister.
The move to bring in new faces to the cabinet comes just three years into the state government’s formation, and two years ahead of the 2027 Legislative Assembly elections.
The new cabinet’s caste composition also features eight ministers from OBC communities, six Patidars, four tribals, three Scheduled Castes, two Kshatriyas, and one each from the Brahmin and Jain (Laghumati) communities.
The latest cabinet reshuffle is also the largest overhaul since September, 2021, when former chief minister Vijay Rupani and his entire ministry resigned, reportedly following directives from the BJP high-command.
A day ahead of the planned expansion, all 16 ministers except the chief minister tendered their resignation.
The previous cabinet under CM Patel included 17 members in total — with eight holding cabinet rank and the remaining serving as Ministers of State (MoS).
Gujarat, which has a 182-member assembly, can have a maximum of 27 ministers (15 percent of the strength of the House).
Earlier this month, MoS Jagdish Vishwakarma became the new president of the state Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) unit, replacing Union minister C R Paatil. Party sources told ANI that Vishwakarma’s name would not be included in the council of ministers this time due to the BJP’s ‘one person, one post’ policy.