He spoke with confidence and spoke about the challenges he had before him, though Nitin Patel had not been announced as the CM of Gujarat.
At noon when CNN-News 18 spoke to the seniormost minister in Anandiben's cabinet, Nitin Patel was accepting congratulations and elaborating on his plans to tackle the Patel quota stir while also reaching out to Dalits.
After all it was just 48 hours back that Vijay Rupani, the Gujarat BJP president, had opted out of the CM race saying he will continue to be an organisation man.
But there were twists waiting to play out and it played out in BJP's state headquarters Kamalam at Koba near Gandhinagar.
The BJP legislators' meet that was scheduled to begin at 4pm but it began 1.30 hours late. Why? Because there were differences of opinion between BJP president Amit Shah and Anandiben Patel.
They were meeting for the first time after the 74-year-old had quit as the Chief Minister of Gujarat citing her age as the reason in a Facebook post.
The body language, those privy to the meeting said, was of hostility. Apart from the two, BJP Gujarat in-charge Dinesh Sharma and former in-charge V Satish, were at a meeting in a separate room.
Sources privy to what played out in the meeting say the outgoing Gujarat CM stuck to her demand that her successor should be Nitin Patel. However, Amit Shah proposed the name of his close aide and Rajkot MLA Vijay Rupani.
According to sources an unpleasant conversation unfolded between the two whose animosity is an open secret in Gujarat.
The former CM, according to sources, told Shah that "the Patel agitation was internally engineered."
She is also believed to have alleged that Shah made several attempts at destabilising her government in the last two years.
She ended by insisting that, "Nitin Patel is the seniormost, Rupani does not have administrative experience."
Shah, sources said, took a strong objection to this unwarranted comment and retorted by saying, "Let the two names be put before the MLAs and let them decide who will be the next CM."
V Satish, according to sources, also spoke to the Prime Minister to communicate the events playing out at the meeting.
Soon, the 119 MLAs were asked to decide who should succeed Anandiben Patel. With almost all demanding that it be Shah as their leader for the big battle of 2017, it was understood that Shah's man will sit on the throne.
Sources said it was a script carefully drafted to show that Shah is the Shehanshah of Gujarat, who may have left the state to be the national president but still calls the shots in the state.
"It's true that Rupani had backed out, but party has given him this responsibility. PM Modi too was apprised of the status before the appointment," Gadkari said.
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