By ARUN PRATAP SINGH
Garhwal Post Bureau
Dehradun, 28 Aug: If the insiders in BJP and official sources are to be believed, Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami may soon go in for a cabinet expansion for the first time after the Assembly elections in 2022. At the time of the formation of the government in 2022, there were three vacancies left in the cabinet. But, first, the unexpected demise of Cabinet Minister Chandan Ramdas and then the sudden resignation of Cabinet Minister Prem Chand Aggarwal, increased the vacancies to 5 berths in the state cabinet. However, despite that, Dhami has never seemed in any hurry to fill up these vacancies. Now, he has indicated that the vacancies may be filled soon.
The current speculation further gains strength from the fact that former cabinet minister Prem Chand Aggarwal, MLA Parvati Das, the wife of late cabinet minister Chandan Ramdas, and also Vice Chairman of SETU Aayog, Raj Shekhar Joshi, have been reportedly asked to vacate the government accommodation reserved for ministers. Joshi may be allocated an alternative accommodation as he continues to be Vice Chairman of SETU Aayog. The Government Estate Department has issued the notices. Not only this, some cars in good condition have also reportedly been reserved for use of the “new” cabinet ministers.
The speculation has further gained strength from the fact that many party MLAs have called on Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami in the past few days and, on Tuesday, as many as 7 party MLAs had called on him. Ramnagar MLA Diwan Singh Bisht, Ghansali MLA Shaktilal Shah and Tehri MLA Kishore Upadhyay also held a meeting. On Monday, several legislators had met Chief Minister Dhami.
Meanwhile, Raipur MLA from Dehradun Umesh Sharma ‘Kau’ and Gadarpur MLA Arvind Pandey had called on Union Home Minister Amit Shah.
However, some senior party MLAs have chosen not to lobby for ministerial berths as they probably see it as a liability when the assembly elections draw nearer and will be held in early 2027.
Of course, it needs to be reminded here that it has been around 2 years since BJP State President Mahendra Bhatt has been claiming an early cabinet expansion in his informal chats with media persons, but this has not happened so far. Some political observers claim that, in the Uttarakhand BJP, insecurity has been the reason why so many cabinet berths have been left vacant in the first place. Even during the peak Corona period, the then Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat had continued to hold the important charge as Health Minister when an independent health minister ought to have been appointed. Tirath Singh Rawat, who had originally replaced Trivendra Singh Rawat as CM, however, chose to fill up all the cabinet berths and when he was replaced by Dhami, the same council of ministers continued till the elections. Following the assembly elections, three berths were left vacant by Dhami.
