Anandiben Mafatbhai Patel takes oath as Gujarat Chief Minister

GANDHINAGAR: Prime Minister-designate Narendra Modi left for Delhi on Thursday, after giving Gujarat its first woman chief minister.

Earlier in the day, his trusted confidante Anandiben Mafatbhai Patel was sworn in to the chief minister’s office by Governor Kamala Beniwal in the presence of the entire top brass of the BJP, including party President Rajnath Singh, Gandhinagar MP LK Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, Sushma Swaraj, Venkaiya Naidu, Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivrajsingh Chauhan and Chhattishgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh. NDA partner and the CM of Punjab, Parkash Singh Badal, too attended.

In a telling gesture, Modi rushed down from the dais where he was sitting with the leaders to assist his predecessor, octogenarian Keshubhai Patel, to climb the stairs and join him on the raised platform. While Patel and Modi until 2012 assembly election were standing against each other politically, Modi has always extended curtseys to the Patel patriarch.

Patel merged his political outfit, Gujarat Parivartan Party, with the BJP ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. His son, Bharat Patel, was fielded from the Visavadar assembly constituency, where bypoll was held simultaneously. But, in spite of the Modi wave in the state, he could not save the seat for the BJP, allegedly due to intra-party machinations. Modi also met his mother.