It Was Amit Shah, Not Age, Say Anandiben Supporters A Day After She Quit

Ahmedabad: A day after Gujarat chief minister Anandiben Patel resigned on Facebook, the focus is now on who the BJP will pick to replace her in the crucial run-up to assembly elections next year.  The state's health minister Nitin Patel and Gujarat's BJP chief Vijay Rupani are said to be front-runners.

Party chief Amit Shah said the party's highest decision making body, the parliamentary board, will decide who will take over from Anandiben, who said she was quitting because she turns 75 soon and respects the party's principle of retiring older leaders to promote younger ones.

Anandiben was accused of mismanaging two major uprisings in Gujarat - the Patel agitation and the recent Dalit anger over the brutal beating of four young men by cow vigilantes - and her successor will be tasked with urgent corrections in time for the 2017 assembly elections.

Local BJP leaders have complained that Anandiben has steered the party's ebbing popularity in a state the party has governed for almost 25 years straight.

But sources close to Ms Patel said today that she felt the agitations were being fanned by her rivals within the party. Handpicked by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to replace him as Gujarat chief minister when he headed to Delhi two years ago, Anandiben, said sources, was upset with alleged interference in the state administration by Amit Shah, with whom she has not shared the best of equations.

Officials in the state were encouraged to bypass the chief minister and approach Mr Shah directly, the sources alleged, adding that she would've quit closer to her 75th birthday in November if not pushed.

Among the front-runners for Gujarat's next chief minister is Vijay Rupani, a Jain leader, known to be close to both to Amit Shah and PM Modi. Mr Rupani is said to have a firm grip over the administrative mechanism of the state government.

The other contender is Nitin Patel, who holds several key portfolios in the Gujarat government, and is, like Anandiben, an influential Patel leader from north Gujarat. He had headed the committee that held negotiations with leaders of the Patel or Patidaar agitation for reservation in government jobs and colleges.

But he has also had several run-ins with leaders of the agitation including 23-year-old Hardik Patel, whose arrest on sedition charges last year was seen as an ill-advised move. Leaders of the agitation have called for a protest every time the minister visits his home district Mehsana.