**3. Conclusion**

Gene duplication, followed by sequence divergence leads to functional divergence of the paralogous proteins, is a major force for adaptation of living organisms. Without gene duplication, the plasticity of genome or organism in adapting to changing environment would be very limited. Chickpea plants are know to be evolved and diversified considerably over time and acquired subsequently various potential genes for their adaptation to environmental stresses. It seems that this drought tolerant legume plant requires more inositol for their adaptation particularly under drought condition and hence acquired *CaMIPS2* over time. Collectively, our results exemplified that *CaMIPS1* and *CaMIPS2* are differentially expressed in chickpea to play discrete though overlapping roles in plant; however *CaMIPS2* is likely to be evolved through gene duplication, followed by adaptive changes in its sequences to function better under environmental stresses and thereby play a key role in environmental stress adaptation along with other aspects of inositol metabolism in chickpea.
