Pushkar Singh Dhami won after losing. Sworn in as the 12 th CM of Uttarakhand with 8 ministers

The governor of Uttarakhand Lt. General ( Retired) Gurmeet Singh has today sworn in the 12 chief minister of Uttarakhand along with eight ministers. The former CM Pushkar Singh Dhami has been sworn in along with eight ministers viz former ministers Satpal Maharaj, Dhan Singh Rawat, Subodh Uniyal, Ganesh Joshi, Rekha Arya, former speaker Prem Chand Aggrawal, lawmaker from Rishikesh, Khajan Dass, Rajpur Road, Dehradun and Saurabh Bahuguna, lawmaker from Sitarganj.

The prime minister Narendra Modi attended the swearing in function along with the Union defence minister Rajnath Singh, union minister Prahalad Joshi, Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath, Rajya Sabha MP and observer Dushyant Gautam, former CMs Trivendra Singh Rawat, Vijay Bahuguna, former union state minister and convenor Uttarakhand BJP Ajay Tamta, former union minister Dr. Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank, state BJP chief Madan Kaushik and several former ministers, all lawmakers and office bearers including large number of BJPs rank and file, all in jubilant mode raising pro Modi n Dhami slogans.

The group led by former Uttarakhand CM who joined BJP in 2017 along with 11 MLAs from Congress, Vijay Bahuguna was successful in getting his youngest son Saurabh Bahuguna and former minister Subodh Uniyal inducted as ministers, whereas Satpal Maharaj, former minister who had joined BJP before the Congress group and a claimant for CM post has been repeated this time as well. Mr. Dhan Singh Rawat former minister and a former RSS pracharak, close to PM Modi has again been inducted again, as is Ganesh Joshi, ex serviceman and lawmaker from Mussourie. Rekha Arya, a lone minister from women’s quota is the luckiest who had also been repeated this time despite her being controvercial, earlier being a women empowerment and child development minister.

The former Congress heavy weight Satpal Maharaj, lawmaker from Chowbattakhal, had been claimant for the CM’s post twice but lost in the race being a Congressman for a long time, doubting his loyalty towards BJP, but has been repeated this time as well.

He had been the union state railway minister and minister of state for finance earlier at the centre during the tenure of H. D. Devegowda as prime minister.

Some news analyst say that keeping view the towering image as a seniormost Uttarakhand leader and a thakur ( Rajput) holding a cabinet minister rank of a small hill state does not suit his personality, especially when he had represented Uttarakhand at the centre twice as union state Railway and Finance ministers from the quota of Congress ( Tiwari).

There are good number of three term lawmakers in Uttarakhand assembly but they have not been accomodated in the ministry this time with former ministers Arvind Pandey, Yatiswaranand, ( lost to Harish Rawat’s daughter Anupama Rawat) and Mr Chuphal etc left out. Two cabinet ministers from BJP government viz Dr. Harak Singh Rawat and Yashpal Arya had already resigned before election to join BJP.

However, the 12 th CM sworn in today had lost from his own constituency Khatima from where he was MLA twice. He lost to Bhuvan Kapri of Congress, young MLA who had been the secretary n youth Congress chief of Uttarakhand earlier. Dhami lost by 6567 votes.

Meanwhile, the BJP high command has decided to appoint Ritu Khanduri, MLA from Kotdwar as the first woman speaker of Uttarakhand Assembly.

She defeated the former health minister of Uttarakhand and Congress heavy weight Surendra Singh Negi, after being first denied ticket from Yamkeshwar seat from where she won for the first time. When her ticket was finalised from Kotdwar assembly, it was felt that she may lose from here but it seems that UP CM Yogi Adityanath’s massive public meeting did paid dividends to her, Dalip Singh Rawat from Lansdowne and Dr. Renu Bisht from Yamkeshwar who all won. Ritu Khanduri is the daughter of former Uttarakhand CM Major General ( R) Bhuvan Chandra Khanduri and wife of the union health secretary Rajesh Bhushan.