Ending week-long suspense, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Monday announced Pushkar Singh Dhami as the chief minister of Uttarakhand for the second straight term.
Dhami was elected the BJP Legislature Party leader at a meeting of newly elected party MLAs in Dehradun in the evening. BJP's central observers for Uttarakhand Rajnath Singh, Meenakshi Lekhi and the party's poll incharge for the state, Pralhad Joshi attended the meeting.
"I congratulate him, I am confident that under his leadership Uttarakhand will make rapid progress," Rajnath Singh told reporters.
Dhami, under whose leadership the BJP had contested the February 14 assembly polls in Uttarakhand, was the frontrunner among around half a dozen names doing the rounds. However, the BJP was in a dilemma on the choice of a chief minister since Dhami lost his Khatima seat in the Assembly polls.
The other contenders for the top post included Chaubattakhal MLA Satpal Maharaj, Shrinagar MLA Dhan Singh Rawat, Rajya Sabha MP Anil Baluni, former Union minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank and Union minister of State for Defence Ajay Bhatt.
A section of BJP leaders credits Dhami for the party's big win in the state assembly polls and want him to be the chief minister again so that he gets a full five-year term to deliver on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision of development in Uttarakhand. A few others, however, wanted a change in leadership.
Dhami and Pradesh BJP president Madan Kaushik had attended a meeting with Union Home Minister Amit Shah at his residence on Sunday to discuss various issues. Former Uttarakhand chief ministers Nishank and Trivendra Singh Rawat had also attended the Sunday meeting with Shah after which Dhami had said the chief minister will be decided at the legislative party meeting in Dehradun on Monday.
The party which went to the polls with Dhami as its chief ministerial candidate won 47 out of a total 70 assembly seats in the state to return to power for a second consecutive term - something which has happened for the first time in the state's electoral history.
According to a PTI report, political observers feel the BJP did not have much scope left for experimentation in Uttarakhand where it has already experimented on two chief ministers in its last tenure. Dhami had been brought in as a replacement for Tirath Singh Rawat towards the fag end of its last tenure in July 2021 and his contribution to the party's good showing at the hustings could not be overlooked, political analysts said.
