NEW DELHI, July 3: Bringing an end to the political instability in Uttarakhand, the BJP legislature party on Saturday elected Pushkar Singh Dhami, the sitting MLA from Khatima, as leader paving way for him to take over as the chief minister of the state.
Dhami is expected to take oath of office and secrecy later Saturday evening at the Raj-Bhavan in Dehradun
Dhami succeeds Tirath Singh Rawat, who after serving a very short period of about four months submitted his resignation to the governor Baby Rani Maurya on Friday night at the behest of the party high command. The party sources said he was asked to resign on technical grounds since he was not a member of the state Assembly and required to be elected by September 10. But any by-election is unlikely to be held in the state since it is due to go to the polls within the next few months.
Interacting with the media after the announcement, Dhami said he would work for the welfare of the people within the short span of time for which he would be at the helm. “My party has appointed a common worker, son of an ex-serviceman, who was born in Pithoragarh to serve the state. We’ll work together for people’s welfare. We accept the challenge of serving people with the help of others, in a short time span,” he said.
BJP has sought to downplay talks of political instability in the state and said it would win the Assembly polls next year. Congress, however, said the saffron party has insulted the ‘devbhoomi’ of Uttarakhand, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi and its president J P Nadda are responsible for the current situation.
Rawat had on Friday handed over his resignation to the governor around 11 pm, hours after returning from Delhi where he was summoned by the top BJP leadership on Wednesday. Rawat, who continues to be an MP, had been handpicked by the central leadership as CM, in place of Trivendra Singh Rawat. Having been sworn in on March 10, he had time to get elected as an MLA till September 10. However, apart from Covid curbs making holding a bypoll difficult, as per the Representation of the People Act, a by-election for a seat should not be held if the term of a House is less than a year.
(Manas Dasgupta)
