By Arun Pratap Singh
Dehradun, 21 Mar: Outgoing Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami has been re-elected as Leader of the BJP Legislative Party. He was elected at the meeting of the Legislative Party held at the BJP State Headquarters here today. It is for the first time in Uttarakhand that the ruling party (BJP) has won the election and, according to the political analysts, a lot of credit for this apart from Prime Minister Narendra Modi, also goes to Dhami, who in his brief tenure before the elections turned the anti-incumbency wave into a pro-incumbency one in favour of BJP. Hence, the party has chosen him to lead the government again despite the fact that Dhami could not manage to win from his own constituency of Khatima.
Dhami will be the 12th CM of Uttarakhand. He will take oath on 23 March at a grand ceremony to be held at the Parade Ground here. It is still not clear whether he will take oath alone or with his cabinet members.
Later in the evening, Dhami reached Raj Bhawan and staked claim to form the new government. During the brief meeting with Governor Lt General Gurmit Singh (Retd), Dhami informed him that he had been elected leader of the BJP Legislative Party and staked the claim to form the next government on the basis of his party winning majority in the assembly elections. Among those who accompanied Dhami to Raj Bhawan were Union Minister of State Meenakshi Lekhi, Union Minister of State Ajay Bhatt, former Union Minister and MP Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’, BJP State President Madan Kaushik, Satpal Maharaj, former CM Vijay Bahuguna, MP Ajay Tamta, Arvind Pandey, Subodh Uniyal, Banshidhar Bhagat, Bishan Singh Chufal, Rekha Arya and Prem Chand Aggarwal. Accepting his claim, the governor invited him to form the new government.
Dhami’s name was announced by the party observer for the meeting, Rajnath Singh, within minutes of the start of the BJP Legislative Party meeting.
Speaking informally to the media after the meeting, Rajnath Singh asserted that Dhami was a committed and dynamic party leader and expressed confidence that Dhami would lead the state strongly on the path of development and growth.
Earlier, the party observers Rajnath Singh and Co-observer Meenakshi Lekhi arrived in Dehradun by a special plane, accompanied by Election in charge and Union Minister Pralhad Joshi and Union Minister of State Ajay Bhatt. From the airport, they all reached a hotel on Subhash Road, first, and held an informal meeting with the party MPs Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’, Anil Baluni, Mala Rajyalaxmi Shah, Naresh Bansal, senior party leaders Satpal Maharaj, Madan Kaushik, Arvind Pandey, Subodh Uniyal amongst others. Soon, all the leaders left for the BJP State Headquarters and the meeting started past 5 p.m. and was over in minutes. Dhami being the outgoing CM, there was no resistance from anyone when his name was proposed. In fact, his name was unanimously and actively supported by the MLAs.
Now that Dhami has been elected as CM again, he is expected to begin consultations with the party high command to finalise names for his Council of Ministers.
Sources also claimed that the BJP High Command never seriously considered other names though discussions were certainly held regarding other names, also, especially during the past two days at the PM’s and Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s residences. Many names were being speculated about in the media and on social media including those of some MPs like Anil Baluni, RP Nishank and Ajay Bhatt and Satpal Maharaj, Dhan Singh Rawat and Ritu Khanduri amongst the MLAs. However, all along, Dhami was always leading the race as it was he who led the party to a historic win.