new Delhi: Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami submitted his resignation along with the cabinet to Governor Lt Gen Gurmeet Singh at Raj Bhavan on Friday.
The development comes a day after the results of the state assembly elections were announced, in which Dhami lost the Khatima seat to his Congress rival Bhuvan Chandra Kapri, while the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) retained power in the hill state with a comfortable majority. Was.
As per norms, Dhami will continue to serve as caretaker chief minister till the new chief minister is sworn in. “As we have got a thumping majority in Uttarakhand, at the end of the current term of work, I submitted my resignation, along with the cabinet to Governor Shri @LtGenGurmit ji,” Dhami posted on his Twitter handle.
As we have got a thumping majority in Uttarakhand, in this sequence, after the end of the work of the present term, after reaching Raj Bhavan today, Mr. Governor Mr. @LtGenGurmit Submitted his resignation along with the cabinet to G (S.N.). pic.twitter.com/44mzZPTLdG
— Pushkar Singh Dhami (@pushkardhami) 11 March 2022
According to Election Commission data, Dhami lost to his Congress rival by 7,000 votes on Thursday.
Meanwhile, the BJP leadership has started searching for a suitable chief ministerial candidate for Uttarakhand. Many names are being discussed, in which the name of Union Minister of State for Defense Ajay Bhatt has come up for the top post of the state.
Ajay Bhatt, Lok Sabha member from Nainital-Udham Singh Nagar, is a senior BJP leader who was a member of the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly before the formation of Uttarakhand. He was twice elected to the Uttarakhand Legislative Assembly – in 2002 and 2012 – and became a member of the Lok Sabha in the year 2019.
Bhatt was made Minister of State for Defense in July last year.
Apart from Ajay Bhatt, other names include former Chief Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank and Rajya Sabha member Anil Baluni.
“The next Chief Minister of Uttarakhand will be decided by the central leadership of the party, and the names of some leaders are already in the discussion. Bhatt is the frontrunner right now.
Among the legislators, Satpal Singh Maharaj and Dhan Singh Rawat, a minister from the previous Uttarakhand government, are other likely CM candidates for the hill state.
Notably, it is a kind of tradition that the incumbent Chief Minister in Uttarakhand does not win the assembly elections. Congress leader Harish Rawat had tried his luck from two seats in the 2017 election, but failed in both.