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Dhami sworn in as Uttarakhand CM for his second term
Puskar Singh Dhami was sworn in as chief minister of Uttarakhand, for the second time in eight months, during a ceremony at Parade Ground here in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday
Puskar Singh Dhami was sworn in as chief minister of Uttarakhand, for the second time in eight months, during a ceremony at Parade Ground here in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday.
Besides Dhami, eight other cabinet ministers were also administered the oath by Uttarakhand governor Lt Gen (retd) Gurmit Singh at the event.
Dhami, who had lost the February 14 elections from Khatima – the constituency he had been representing since 2012 – needs to be elected to the state assembly within six months to continue as chief minister.
“We will work to make Uttarakhand the best state by 2025, when the state will complete 25 years (since its formation. We will work with the Centre for the development of the state,” Dhami told reporters after the ceremony.
He also said that the first meeting of the new cabinet will be held on Thursday.
Congratulating Dhami, Modi expressed confidence that the new government in the state “will establish a new paradigm of development in line with people’s aspirations”. “Many congratulations to Pushkar Dhami ji on taking oath as the chief minister of Uttarakhand. In the last five years, Devbhoomi has made rapid progress in every field. I am sure that you and all your ministers will give further impetus to it, setting a new paradigm of development according to the aspirations of the people,” he tweeted.
Among the cabinet ministers who took oath were three new inductees – Chandan Ramdas (Bageshwar MLA), Premchand Agarwal (Rishikesh MLA) and Saurabh Bahuguna (Sitarganj MLA). Agarwal, who was the speaker in the previous legislative assembly, took oath in Sanskrit.
Other ministers included Satpal Maharaj (Chaubattakhal MLA), Dhan Singh Rawat (Srinagar MLA), Rekha Arya (Someshwar MLA), Ganesh Joshi (Mussoorie MLA) and Subodh Uniyal (Narendra Nagar MLA).
Listing his priorities in the new government, Joshi stressed on the completion of the construction of Saniya Dham, the fifth Dham after Char Dham, in Dehradun. Resolving the issues of ex-servicemen will also be one of my focuses, he said.
Uniyal said the priority of the government will be to create employment avenues for the youth of the state. Maharaj said one of his priorities will be to promote tourism in the state, especially religious tourism and winter tourism.
Four ministers from the previous government did not find a place in the new cabinet. They were Banshidhar Bhagat (Kaladhungi MLA), Bishan Singh Chuphal (Didihat MLA), Arvind Pandey (Gadarpur MLA) and Madan Kaushik (Haridwar MLA). Kaushik has been appointed as the state chief of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
A few reports suggested that Chupal was not made a cabinet minister to allow Dhami to contest the bypoll from the former’s Didihat seatin Pithoragarh district.
While one of the cabinet ministers from the previous government, Yatishwaranand, had lost the polls from Haridwar rural, two others – Harak Singh Rawat and Yashpal Arya – had joined the Congress ahead of the elections.
Besides the chief minister, the Uttarakhand cabinet can have 11 members. In view of this, three more members can be added to the cabinet.
Prior to the swearing-in ceremony, Dhami along with several BJP leaders and workers offered prayers at Tapkeshwar Temple inthe cantonment area of Garhi in Dehradun and at a gurdwara in Race Course Road.
Besides Modi, the event was attended by BJP national president J P Nadda, Union ministers Amit Shah, Nitin Gadkari and Rajnath Singh, chief ministers Yogi Adityanath (Uttar Pradesh), Shivraj Singh Chauhan (Madhya Pradesh), Manohar Lal (Haryana), Pramod Sawant (Goa), Bhupendra Patel (Gujarat) and Himanta Biswa Sarma (Assam) and former Rajasthan chief minister Vasundhara Raje Scindia.
“We congratulate Dhami, the new cabinet ministers and the new government in the state. We hope that it will fulfill the promises made during the (election) campaign. We also hope it won’t indulge in the politics of religion and caste; that it will work for checking hill migration, creating employment avenues and promoting tourism. We hope to have a stable government for the next five years and that BJP doesn’t have to change its chief like it did in the previous government,” state Congress general secretary Mathura Dutt Joshi said.
Dhami was elected as the third chief minister of the state in just five months last year.
Bucking the trend of alternate governments in Uttarakhand, the BJP on March 10 registered a remarkable victory in the assembly elections by winning 47 out of 70 seats.
The party’s vote share in the state, however, slightly dropped to 44.3% from 46.5% in 2017. The party had won 57 seats in the previous election.
