New Delhi: Pushkar Singh Dhami was on Saturday elected as the leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) legislature party, paving the way for him to take over as the 11th chief minister of Uttarakhand.
Dhami, who is a two-time MLA from Khatima in Udham Singh Nagar district, replaces Tirath Singh Rawat who resigned on Friday night.
The decision comes after 57 Uttarakhand BJP MLAs met Saturday afternoon at the party headquarters in Dehradun to elect their new leader.
According to news reports, Dhami is considered to be close to Maharashtra governor, former Uttarakhand chief minister Bhagat Singh Koshyari, and even Union defence minister Rajnath Singh.
Dhami will be Uttarakhand’s third chief minister in four months.
Former Uttarakhand chief minister and Congress leader Harish Rawat on Friday tweeted saying Tirath Singh Rawat’s resignation due to constitutional compulsion and that by-elections cannot be held in the state due to COVID-19 is the biggest lie. “What can be a bigger lie than this that byelections cannot be held in Uttarakhand due to COVID and the chief minister is resigning due to constitutional compulsion. The reality is that byelections have been held before in the same COVID period. The byelection has been held in Salt (an assembly constituency in Uttarakhand). The chief minister could have contested from there also,” tweeted Rawat.
इससे बड़ा झूठ क्या हो सकता है कि कोरोना संक्रमण की वजह से #उत्तराखंड में उपचुनाव नहीं हो सकते और संवैधानिक बाध्यता के कारण #मुख्यमंत्री इस्तीफा दे रहे हैं। वास्तविकता यह है कि उसी कोरोना काल में पहले भी उपचुनाव हुये हैं, सल्ट का उपचुनाव हुआ है और मुख्यमंत्री जी
1/2 pic.twitter.com/PzobPcl9d3— Harish Rawat (@harishrawatcmuk) July 2, 2021
Soon after being elected as the leader of the legislature party, Dhami thanked the party leadership for reposing faith in him and said that he will deal with the challenges lying ahead with everyone’s cooperation.
(With inputs from PTI)