Gujarat BJP awaits new state chief for over a year

Gujarat BJP is still awaiting a new state president, more than a year after CR Patil expressed his wish to step down.

Patil, Lok Sabha MP from Navsari, had expressed his desire to see the next president of the state unit taking over soon after he joined the Union Cabinet after 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

While the party is yet to find a replacement for Patil's phenomenal organisational and micromanagement skills that led to BJP's wining record 156 seats in 182 member assembly and 25 out of 26 Lok Sabha seats in 2024, beating two terms anti-incumbency, it is now believed that the state president may be appointed only after a decision on the national president of the party is arrived at.


Meanwhile, CR Patil has completed five years as Gujarat President in July last.

While periodically several names of the senior party leaders have surfaced as the prospective state presidents, name of a senior cabinet minister of Gujarat has been making rounds of late albeit without any clear confirmation of the possibility of him assuming the charge of the party. For the records, the state cabinet is also expected to be reshuffled to accommodate some of the senior politicians who have been patiently waiting their turns after joining BJP.

With the clarity on the state leadership being less than clear, internal feuds of the otherwise "disciplined" party have been surfacing sporadically with the latest one being Congress turncoat and former minister Javahar Chavda getting active in Junagarh and recently a photograph of him with AAP workers went viral. Chavda had joined BJP in 2019 and went on to join the state cabinet.

However he started having issues with the party leaders, particularly from Saurashtra and it was alleged that he played a role in the win of AAP candidate Gopal Italia in the recently held by-election at Manavadar.