Editor's Pick: Calling it quits

Chief Minister Vijay Rupani resigned on Saturday, a year before Gujarat goes to the polls. He had occupied the post in 2016 after a beleaguered Anandiben Patel decided to quit following infighting in the BJP and disenchantment with her leadership. The Gujarat BJP announced that a new leader will be chosen at the next Legislature Party meeting. Mr. Rupani is the fourth BJP Chief Minister to resign this year, with Uttarakhand, Assam and Karnataka all seeing a change of guard. The Hindu's Nistula Hebbar says this trend points to the fact that the BJP is now an incontrovertibly high command party and Prime Minister Narendra Modi's image alone can no longer improve the party's fortunes in State after State. According to the party high command, Mr. Rupani's performance has been lacklustre. The State government was woefully unprepared for the second COVID-19 wave. According to this report by Mahesh Langa, data suggest that the death toll during the second wave was 15 times the official count in Gujarat. The State also recorded the highest number of mucormycosis cases in the country. The devastating second wave of infections has also led to acute social and economic distress in the State. Party observers also say Mr. Rupani is a soft-spoken man who came across as "weak". He is said to have allowed bureaucrats a lot of power in making key decisions. All these factors may have forced his resignation. Congress leaders reacted to Mr. Rupani's resignation stating that he has been made a scapegoat for the BJP's failures. They said that there is deep-seated infighting in the party. Gujarat MLA Jignesh Mevani tweeted that the "resignation comes purely to take care of electoral arithmetic" keeping the elections in mind. The Aam Aadmi Party said that it has successfully dislodged an ineffective Congress in the State and occupied the opposition space. This, it claimed, forced the BJP to remove its leader. With political parties getting ready for the battle and the BJP attempting to recover lost ground and win the confidence of the people, this is our top story of the day. The Hindu Explains Explained | Will the new Production-Linked Incentive scheme help textile industry? Explained | What is the new framework to share financial data? Was this newsletter forwarded to you? Head over to our newsletter subscription page to sign up for Editor's Pick and more. Click here Try out The Hindu's daily news quiz Which automaker said it will close down two of its manufacturing plants in India whcih is likely to impact 4,000 jobs? 1. Hyundai India 2. Tata Motors 3. Ford Motor Company 4. Mahindra $ Mahindra To find out the answer and play the full quiz, click here. There will be no edition of Editor's Pick tomorrow as we are closed on Friday for Vinayaka Chaturthi. [logo] Editor's Pick 12 SEPTEMBER 2021 [The Hindu logo] In the Editor's Pick newsletter, The Hindu explains why a story was important enough to be carried on the front page of today's edition of our newspaper. [Arrow]( [Open in browser]( [Mail icon]( [More newsletters]( Calling it quits [Calling it quits] Chief Minister[Vijay Rupani resigned on Saturday]( a year before Gujarat goes to the polls. He had occupied the post in 2016 after a beleaguered Anandiben Patel decided to quit following infighting in the BJP and disenchantment with her leadership. The Gujarat BJP announced that a new leader will be chosen at the next Legislature Party meeting. Mr. Rupani is the fourth BJP Chief Minister to resign this year, with Uttarakhand, Assam and Karnataka all seeing a change of guard. The Hindu's Nistula Hebbar says this trend points to the fact that the BJP is now an incontrovertibly high command party and Prime Minister Narendra Modi's image alone can no longer improve the party's fortunes in State after State. According to the party high command, Mr. Rupani's performance has been lacklustre. The State government was woefully unprepared for the second COVID-19 wave. According to this report by Mahesh Langa, data suggest that the death toll during the second wave was 15 times the official count in Gujarat. The State also recorded [the highest number of mucormycosis cases in the country](. The devastating second wave of infections has also led to acute social and economic distress in the State. Party observers also say [Mr. Rupani is a soft-spoken man who came across as "weak"](. He is said to have allowed bureaucrats a lot of power in making key decisions. All these factors may have forced his resignation. Congress leaders reacted to Mr. Rupani's resignation stating that he has been made a scapegoat for the BJP's failures. They said that there is deep-seated infighting in the party. Gujarat MLA Jignesh Mevani tweeted that the "resignation comes purely to take care of electoral arithmetic" keeping the elections in mind. The Aam Aadmi Party said that it has successfully dislodged an ineffective Congress in the State and occupied the opposition space. This, it claimed, forced the BJP to remove its leader. With political parties getting ready for the battle and the BJP attempting to recover lost ground and win the confidence of the people, this is our top story of the day. The Hindu Explains [Arrow][Explained | Will the new Production-Linked Incentive scheme help textile industry?]( [Arrow][Explained | What is the new framework to share financial data?]( [underlineimg] Was this newsletter forwarded to you? Head over to our newsletter subscription page to sign up for Editor's Pick and more. [Click here]( [underlineimg] Try out The Hindu's daily news quiz Which automaker said it will close down two of its manufacturing plants in India whcih is likely to impact 4,000 jobs? 1. Hyundai India 2. Tata Motors 3. Ford Motor Company 4. 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