Modi bids Gujarat adieu, moves to national capital

Prime Minister-designate Narendra Modi on Thursday left for New Delhi after finally bidding adieu to Gujarat saying, ‘Aavjo (goodbye) Gujarat’.

‘When I am leaving for Delhi, as per our tradition, I would like to say ‘aavjo’ to 6.25 crore people... ‘Aavjo Gujarat (goodbye Gujarat),’ Modi said at the airport before leaving for New Delhi.

The former-chief minister will be sworn in as the prime minister on 26 May, after he led his party to a resounding victory in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.

Modi also thanked media persons of Gujarat before the departure.

‘I would like to thank all the media persons, be it reporters of television channel, print media, editors, columnists, from the bottom of my heart for their cooperation in the last 13 years. I am hopeful that we will continue to work for development of Gujarat and India,’ Modi said.

Modi completed all his tasks in Gujarat like resigning from the post of the chief minister and MLA and giving the state a new chief minister in form of Anandiben Patel before leaving for Delhi.

Modi had been chief minister of Gujarat from 7 October, 2001.

Meanwhile, eight BJP MLAs resigned on Thursday after they were elected as members of Lok Sabha.

They include Khambhalia MLA Poonam Madam (from Jamnagar), Anand MLA Dilip Patel (Anand), Limkheda MLA Jaswantsinh Bhabhor (Dahod), Deesa MLA Liladhar Vaghela (Patan), Matar MLA Devusinh Chauhan (Kheda), Talaja MLA Bharti Shyal (Bhavnagar), Mangrol MLA Rajesh Chudasama (Junagadh) and Tankara MLA Mohan Kundariya (Rajkot).

All of them were given tickets by BJP for Lok Sabha elections and all of them won. Since one person cannot be members of the state legislature and parliament, these MLAs gave their resignations to Gujarat state assembly Speaker Vajubhai Vala.

‘Narendrabhai resigned yesterday (Wednesday) while these eight MLAs resigned today (Thursday. Our Speaker Vajubhai Vala accepted their resignations,’ BJP chief whip Pankaj Desai said.

Apart from Varanasi, Modi, who was Maninagar MLA, contested from Vadodara in recent Lok Sabha elections and won by thumping margins.

By-polls are expected to be announced at all these nine assembly seats to elect fresh MLAs. As per rules, by-polls should be held within six months from the day the seat becomes vacant.