Uttarakhand Legislature meeting today to decide 9th Chief Minister of state

There has been a political uproar in Uttarakhand after Trivendra Singh Rawat resigned from the post of Chief Minister on Tuesday and lobbying for the replacement in the ruling BJP has started. Dhan Singh Rawat, who is a close aide of the Trivendra and the state's Higher Education and Cooperation Minister, is leading the race for the post. Apart from him, Lok Sabha MP Ajay Bhatt, Rajya Sabha MP Anil Baluni, State Tourism Minister Satpal Maharaj, and Union Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank are also among the contenders for the post of Chief Minister.

Rawat returned to Dehradun on Tuesday after meeting the BJP central leadership in Delhi and reached the Raj Bhavan at 4 pm to meet Governor Baby Rani Maurya and submitted his resignation. Accepting Rawat's resignation, the Governor asked him to hold the responsibilities of the post till the new Chief Minister of the state is elected. At 10 am on Wednesday, a meeting of the Legislature party has been convened at the state BJP headquarters in the presence of all the MLAs where the leader will be selected. BJP's National Vice President and former Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh will be present in the meeting as a central observer.

Rawat, after resigning on Tuesday, said "The party has collectively decided that now someone else should get this opportunity. My four-year term is only nine days short of completion." When asked about the reason behind his resignation, Rawat said, "This is a collective decision of the party, you have to go to Delhi to get a good answer." Rawat also wished his successor and said, "Now, whoever will be given the responsibility tomorrow, he will discharge it. I wish him all the best."

Notably, since taking oath on March 18, 2017, there has been a lot of discontent among BJP MLAs on some issues including cabinet expansion, but speculation of change of leadership in the state became rife on Saturday evening when Raman Singh and Dushyant Kumar Singh, Uttarakhand in-charge of party affairs, suddenly reached Dehradun and for a core group meeting. This meeting of the State Party Core Group was not already proposed and it was called at a time when the important budget session of the State Legislative Assembly was going on.

Decision taken in this meeting

On receiving the information of the meeting, Chief Minister Rawat immediately had to come back to Dehradun from Garsain. Soon after the budget was passed, the session was also ended indefinitely and the BJP MLAs were also called to Dehradun from Gansain immediately. Most of the MPs of the state and important leaders associated with the state organization were present in the meeting of the core group which lasted for more than two hours. On Monday too, many programs were proposed by Chief Minister Rawat in Garsain and Dehradun but at the call of the high command, he had to go to Delhi from where he returned on Tuesday and submitted his resignation.

The main reason behind BJP's decision to remove Trivendra Singh Rawat from the post of Chief Minister in Uttarakhand is believed that if Rawat had remained in his post, then the BJP could have suffered a lot in the elections to the State Legislative Assembly.

Legislative assembly elections are to be held in the early months of next year in Uttarakhand. Complaints against a class of BJP MLAs of the state were continuously increasing against Rawat. Among them were MLAs leaving the Congress and joining the BJP. These MLAs also expressed concern to the central leadership about the image of Rawat in the public mind.