Gujarat polls near, Chief Minister Vijay Rupani is guest at Adda today

Vijay Rupani took charge in August last year

WITH ALL eyes on Gujarat in the run-up to the Assembly elections, Chief Minister Vijay Rupani is counting on a new mandate to retain the BJP’s hold over the state for the fourth successive time. On Friday, two days before he launches his party’s Gaurav Yatra, Rupani will be the guest at the Express Adda in Ahmedabad — the first in the city.

Rupani, who took charge as Chief Minister in August last year, has his roots in the RSS and rose steadily through the political ranks — from a student leader to Corporator and Mayor, from Member of Parliament to state party president, from Minister to Chief Minister.

After starting as Chief Minister with a promise of “honest, transparent, sensitive and decisive government”, Rupani has taken some major decisions like strengthening the state’s prohibition and cow protection laws, opening the India-Pakistan border for visitors, and launching the Shramik Annapurna Yojana that provides subsidised food to labourers.

On the personal front, not many know that Rupani was born in Rangoon in Burma, now Yangon in Myanmar. In 1960, four years after his birth, his family moved to Rajkot.

At the Express Adda, Rupani will be in conversation with The Indian Express’s National Opinon Editor Vandita Mishra and Resident Editor (Gujarat) Leena Misra. Guests at the event in the past include the Dalai Lama, economist and Nobel laureate Amartya Sen, Union Ministers Nitin Gadkari and Piyush Goyal, filmmaker Karan Johar, Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, writer Amitav Ghosh and cricketer Virat Kohli.