Tirath Singh Rawat sworn in as new Chief Minister of Uttarakhand

Tirath Singh Rawat was the first education minister of the newly formed state Uttarakhand. After this, he was elected as state general secretary of Uttarakhand in 2007 and after that state chief electoral officer and state membership chief. In 2012, he was elected as legislative assembly member (MLA) and in 2013 he became Uttarakhand BJP Chief.

This comes a day after Trivendra Rawat resigned as the chief minister following disquiet in the BJP over his governance. Asked about the reason for his resignation, Rawat said: “Yeh samuhik nirnay hota hai aur iska bahut acchha jawab aapko Delhi jaana padega uske liye (A collective decision is made. And for an appropriate answer, you will have to go to Delhi).”

Sources in the BJP said that while the party had been aware of the growing dissent against Rawat’s leadership for a while, the decision to drop him was firmed up after the visit of BJP vice president Raman Singh and Rajya Sabha MP Dushyant Gautam to the state on March 7, where they met MLAs, RSS leaders and the Chief Minister. They told The Indian Express that the decision to remove Rawat had “almost certainly” been taken even before Singh and Gautam were sent to Dehradun.