Five new BJP Gujarat MLAs take oath

The five BJP MLAs who were recently elected to the state assembly in September by-polls took oath as MLAs before the state assembly speaker Ashok Bhatt on Tuesday.

Chief minister Narendra Modi was present during new oath-taking ceremony. The new BJP MLAs are Bhavsinh Rathod from Sami-Hariz, Kalyansinh Chouhan from Dehgam, Vasant Bhatol from Danta, Vashram Khorani from Chotila and Bharat Boghara from the Jasdan seat.

All cabinet ministers, besides state ministers, parliament secretaries, several BJP leaders as well as BJP state president Purshotam Rupala and large number of party workers were present at the ceremony. The party also held a meeting of its MLAs in the evening at the assembly which was attended by the chief minister Narendra Modi besides other party leaders.

Senior BJP leader Vijay Rupani said that the primary agenda of the event was the upcoming Maharashtra assembly elections. "We discussed how our state unit can help the Maharashtra BJP in fetching maximum votes of the Gujaratis living in large numbers in Mumbai and all over Maharashtra," he said.

Senior BJP leaders, state BJP MPs and MLAs and large number of state BJP workers is expected to participate in the election campaign. State Congress also held an MLAs meeting to discuss the strategy of implementation of cutting 20% of their salaries as austerity drive efforts launch by Congress-led UPA government.