Three days after Bhupendra Patel replaced Vijay Rupani as Gujarat Chief Minister, Governor Acharya Devvrat administered the oath of office to State ministers at the Raj Bhavan in Gandhinagar on Thursday.

Assembly Speaker in the last administration Rajendra Trivedi, ex-State BJP president Jitu Vaghani, Rushikesh Patel, Raghavji Patel, and Purnesh Modi were among those who were sworn in as cabinet ministers of the new administration.

Kanubhai Desai, Naresh Patel, Kiritsinh Rana, Pradip Parmar, and Arjunsinh Chauhan were sworn in as Cabinet Ministers.

While Harsh Sanghavi, Jagadish Panchal, Brijesh Merza, Jitu Chaudhari, and Manish Vakil were sworn in as Ministers of State.

The BJP decided to drop all who served in the Vijay Rupani administration. Though there is no official word about what is being called the “no repeat theory” that the BJP leadership has decided to implement in Gujarat ahead of the next year’s Assembly election, party insiders said that no Minister of the previous administration would be retained in the new Cabinet.

It has been learnt from well-placed sources that several former as well as senior Ministers are apparently unhappy as they suspect they will not be included as per the “no repeat theory”.

Late on Wednesday, supporters of former Minister Kuvarji Bavalia, a prominent OBC leader who has some influence in the Koli community in the Saurashtra region, circulated messages that if Mr. Bavalia did not find a place in the new Cabinet, the community would go against the party.

Similarly, murmurs of protests have emerged from north Gujarat, Saurashtra and even central Gujarat as senior Ministers who were part of the previous administrations of Narendra Modi, Anandiben Patel and Mr. Rupani are likely to be axed as the ruling party wants to face the Assembly polls with new faces.

The BJP has effected a change of guard in Gujarat with the 59-year-old first-time legislator Mr. Bhupendra Patel replacing Mr. Rupani on Monday.