Gujarat’s revenue and road ministers stripped of portfolios ‘after complaints’

Both cabinet portfolios will now be with Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel, who gave the revenue charge to Harsh Sanghavi, minister of state for home, and roads and buildings charge to Jagdish Panchal (Vishwakarma), minister of state for industries.

The reshuffle came ahead of BJP general secretary B L Santhosh’s state visit scheduled for Sunday.

Trivedi, an MLA from the Raopura constituency in Vadodara, will continue to hold charge of disaster management, law and justice, and legislative and parliamentary affairs. Modi, an MLA from Surat West, will continue to hold charge of civil aviation, transport, tourism and pilgrimage development.

Top government sources told The Indian Express that the decision came following “admonitions from the CM recently” after complaints of corruption and inefficiency were raised against them. With the BJP aiming a record win in the upcoming Assembly elections, party state chief C R Paatil was also aware of the complaints and was “unhappy with their performance”.

Modi, a first-time minister, launched an app by his name in July to enable people to reach out with complaints about roads and other infrastructure. Roads in several parts, including Surat, were damaged or pot-holed following heavy rain.

Earlier this month, he flagged off 75 buses carrying 4,000 senior citizens, mostly from his constituency, on a pilgrimage to Somnath and other sites under the government’s newly amended Shravan Tirth Darshan Yojana.

He was unavailable for comment on Saturday.

Within months of becoming a minister, Trivedi had gone live on Facebook paying “surprise visits” to revenue offices, camerapersons in tow.

“Party leaders were unhappy with both the ministers for being less efficient in dealing with complaints and paying more attention to their own publicity,” said a source.

Trivedi was speaker in the Vijay Rupani government and had served as junior minister earlier.
Panchal is also minister of state for cottage industries, cooperation, salt industries, protocol (independent charge), industries, environment, climate change, printing and stationary (state minister), while Sanghavi holds additional charge of sports, youth and culture.