Gandhinagar: Union minister Narendra Singh Tomar, who has been appointed central observer for election of new Chief Minister of Gujarat today called on Gujarat BJP chief CR Patil at his residence and held meeting which was also attended by Bhupendra Yadav, BL Santosh and Tarun Chugh among others. Tomar, Chugh, Yadav, BL Santosh later arrived at Gujarat BJP headquarters Kamalam in Gandhinagar. Meanwhile Prahlad Joshi, another central observer also arrived as Central observer to Gandhinagar. Joshi told media persons that he will hold consultations with Gujarat leaders and then the central leadership will take a decision on new name of Chief Minister.

After resignation of Vijaybhai Rupani from the post of Chief Minister of Gujarat yesterday, a meeting of ruling party MLAs is likely to be held today in Gandhinagar in which the name of the new Chief Minister and possibly one or two Deputy Chief Ministers are going to be announced. It is not clear at this point that whether the new leader will be from within the ruling party MLAs or from a greater pool.

When Anandiben Patel stepped down from the post of Chief Minister in August 2016, the party had made it clear that the new Chief Minister will be from party MLAs. However this time, so far no clarification has been made in this regard. If election of Chief Minister takes places from within MLAs, Nitin Patel’s natural elevation is a top speculation followed by Agriculture minister RC Faldu and other names. The names are generally cleared by party’s central parliamentary board in Delhi. The observers will eventually declare in the meeting of MLAs, the only name arrived for the post of Chief Minister and possibly Deputy Chief Minister(s) to pave a way for swearing in ceremony later on desired day. DeshGujarat