India: Pushkar Singh Dhami is new Uttarakhand chief minister

New Delhi: Pushkar Singh Dhami has been elected as the new chief minister of Uttarakhand.

Dhami, a two time member of legislative assembly, was elected new chief minister of the hilly state in a meeting of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s legislative party in Dehradun.

The election was held in the presence of federal observers — Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar and party national general secretary D. Purandeswari. BJP in-charge for Uttarakhand Dushyant Gautam also present in the meeting.

The 45-year-old Khatima constituency MLA in Udham Singh Nagar district has worked in different positions in BJP’s student and youth wings. He has also served as president of BJP youth wing president in Uttarakhand for two terms.

Tirath Singh Rawat late on Friday submitted his resignation to Governor Baby Rani Maurya. Rawat was a Lok Sabha member from Garhwal, and as per the rules, needed to be sworn in as an elected MLA within six months of taking over as the Chief Minister.

Rawat was supposed to get himself elected to the state Assembly before September 10 to remain in office which could not happen due to provision of Representation of the People Act, 1951, which says that bypolls cannot be held if the remainder of the term in house relation to the vacancy is less than a year.

The Election Commission has also decided not to hold any election due to the pandemic.

Tirath Singh Rawat was sworn in as Uttarakhand’s Chief Minister on March 10 replacing Trivendra Singh Rawat.