Gujarat cabinet swearing-in: Nitin Patel likely to be dropped, youngsters to be included

New Delhi [India], September 16 (ANI): New cabinet of Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel will be sworn on Thursday and as per sources the majority of ministers in the cabinet headed by previous Chief Minister Vijay Rupani are likely to be dropped, including Nitin Patel.
Over 20 leaders would be sworn in as ministers which may make way for young ministers, the sources said.
This comes ahead of the next year's Gujarat Assembly election. The majority of Rupani's cabinet might not be retained in the new Cabinet.
MLA from Bhuj Nimaben Acharya, Jagdish Amraiwadi's MLA Patel, MLA from Deesa constituency Shashikant Pandya and Rajkot's MLA Govind Patel may be inducted in Gujarat's new cabinet, the sources said.
The names discussed who are likely to be inducted as the ministers are - Rushikesh Patel (Visnagar), Parmar Gajendrasinh Udesinh (Prantij), Makwana Raghavbhai Chondabhai (Mahuva), Jitu Vaghani (Bhavnagar West), Pankajkumar Desai (Nadiad), Kuberbhai Dindor (Santrampur), Ketan Inamdar (Savli), Manisha Rajiv Vakil (Vadodara), Dushyant Patel (Bharuch), Sangita Paatil (Surat), Naresh Patel (Gandevi) and Desai Kanubhai Mohanlal (Pardi).
Senior leaders in the party are reaching out to those not likely to be retained as ministers.
"There is a massive exercise going on to see that leaders who won't be accommodated in the cabinet do not feel left out," the sources added.
Bhupendra Patel took oath as the 17th Chief Minister of Gujarat on Monday.
The party is counting on Patel to shore up the party's fortunes ahead of the assembly elections towards the end of next year. In the 2017 state election, the BJP won 99 of the state's 182 Assembly seats and Congress got 77 seats. (ANI)