Pushkar Singh Dhami elected as new Uttarakhand chief minister

Dhami succeeds Tirath Singh Rawat, who resigned last night after nearly four months in office. Tirath Singh Rawat replaced Trivendra Signh Rawat in March.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) announced on Saturday that Pushkar Singh Dhami will be the new chief minister of Uttarakhand, succeeding Tirath Singh Rawat, who stepped down from the post on Friday. Dhami, who is an MLA from the Khatima assembly constituency in the hill state's Udham Singh Nagar district, was elected after a BJP legislature party meeting in Dehradun, which was chaired by Union agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar.

"My party has appointed a common worker, the son of an ex-serviceman, who was born in Pithoragarh, to serve the state. We'll work together for people's welfare. We accept the challenge of serving people with the help of others, in a short time span," the new chief minister was quoted as saying by news agency ANI, after being elected to the post. He will take oath later today.

Dhami is Uttarakhand's third chief minister in nearly four months. Tirath Singh Rawat, who was sworn-in on March 10 as the successor to Trivendra Singh Rawat, resigned amid uncertainty over by-polls which he required to win to continue in office. Tirath Singh Rawat, who is a Lok Sabha MP from Garhwal, had time till September 10 to be elected as a member of the state assembly. However, the Election Commission of India (ECI) has the option to not conduct by-polls if the remaining term of the assembly is less than a year. Under this scenario, he would not have been able to continue as the chief minidter.

Uttarakhand is likely to go to polls early next year. In the 2017 assembly elections, the BJP won 57 out of the state's 70 assembly constituencies after which Trivendra Singh Rawat was appointed as the chief minister.