Image Courtesy:indianexpress.com
After days of speculation and a trip to New Delhi for meetings, Trivendra Singh Rawat, has resigned as Uttarakhand Chief Minister on Tuesday. He was in Delhi on Monday, where he is said to have met with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leadership. The endorsement of his exit seems to have been made obvious, and the 60-year-old Rawat handed in his resignation to Governor Baby Rani Maurya. He would have completed four years as CM, in a few days.
“I have submitted my resignation as the chief minister to the Governor today. BJP legislature party meeting is scheduled to be held at 10 AM tomorrow at the party office,” Rawat told the media. According to Indian Express, accepting his resignation, the Governor has asked Rawat to be the caretaker CM till a new candidate is selected for the post.
According to NDTV, state minister Dhan Singh Rawat, is likely to be appointed the new Chief Minister, he reportedly flew down from to the state capital Dehradun in a private helicopter this afternoon.
Trivendra Singh Rawat’s resignation, stated NDTV is a part of “the BJP’s course-correction in the state a year ahead of polls.” According to news reports it was Rawat’s own colleagues from the state who told the BJP leadership in Delhi that his “below par performance would cost the party” in the next polls.
However, changing a CM, barely a year before elections may also send a message to the voters that the BJP does not trust its senior member, who has been heading the state government for nearly four years.
It is being speculated that Rawat’s “handling” of the Chamoli flash flood was the final blow. Now the news is also abuzz on how yesterday, the BJP chief JP Nadda met with Home Minister Amit Shah and senior BJP leader BL Santosh, before he met Rawat. According to NDTV, the party also sent Raman Singh and Dushyant Gautam, to Dehradun on Saturday “for an assessment.” The report added that these two leaders met with MLAs, as well as and leaders of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), and submitted a report to the BJP president “recommending change and damage control”. More meetings will now be held before the state’s next Chief Minister is appointed.
According to the Hindustan Times “the BJP has already drafted its new blueprint in which there will be a deputy chief minister — a tested model of BJP governance.” A strong contender of the deputy CM post is Khatime constituency MLA Pushkar Singh Dhami, while Dhan Singh Rawat, Ajay Bhatt and Anil Baluni (both MPs) are in the race to be CM. The IE reported that “senior MLAs have also been demanding the expansion of the State Cabinet where three berths have been lying vacant for two years”. The BJP has to prepare for the state elections due in 2022, in 2017, the party came to power winning 57 out of 70 seats.
It has been reported that Rawat has been accused of not taking others along in key decision making. The IE reported that some MLAs from Uttarakhand “had conveyed their dissatisfaction with the functioning of Rawat’s government to the central leadership and the RSS.”
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