Gandhinagar: In a surprising political development, months ahead of the Gujarat assembly elections, Vijay Rupani resigned as Chief Minister of Gujarat on Saturday.  

In a media briefing, Rupani did not outline the reason behind his decision. Also, the ruling party, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), have not announced the name of the new chief minister. He thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union home minister Amit Shah and the people of Gujarat and said that he will take new responsibilities assigned to him by the party.

Early in the day, he attended the inauguration of Sardardham Bhavan in Gujarat's Ahmedabad performed by PM Narendra Modi through video conferencing.

Meanwhile, National General Secretary of BJP, BL Santosh's meeting with party MLAs is underway.

Rupani succeeded Anandiben Patel and was sworn in as the Chief Minister of Gujarat on 7 August 2016.In the 2017 Gujarat Legislative Assembly election, he retained Rajkot West constituency defeating the Indian National Congress candidate Indranil Rajyaguru. 

He was unanimously elected as the leader of the legislature party on 22 December 2017 and continued as the Chief Minister of Gujarat with Nitin Patel as the Deputy Chief Minister.

In the past few months BJP has changed chief ministers in Uttarakhand and Karnataka. Pushkar Singh Dhami is the third chief minister of Uttarakhand in a span of four years. He succeeded Tirath Singh Rawat. In Karnataka, Basavaraj Bommai succeeded senior leader and Lingayat strongman BS Yediyurappa.