What led to Uttarakhand CM Trivendra Rawat’s resignation: Key points

Rawat resigned on Tuesday nine days before the BJP government completes four years in power. The resignation followed a rebellion in the ranks against Rawat’s decision to announce Gairsain as a new administrative division

Uttarakhand chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat resigned on Tuesday nine days before the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government completes four years in power. Here is all you need to know what prompted the move:

Trivendra Singh Rawat arrives to address a press conference after tendering his resignation as Uttarakhand CM to Governor Baby Rani Maurya, in Dehradun on March 9. (PTI)

• The resignation followed a rebellion in the ranks against Rawat’s decision to announce Gairsain as a new administrative division, party leaders said.

• BJP leaders aware of the matter said the political upheaval in the state started on Friday when Rawat announced Gairsain as the third administrative division in the state without consulting even his cabinet colleagues.

• A minister called it a unilateral announcement which had huge political ramifications as people in Kumaon were against such a move.

• Rawat’s failure to connect with the party cadre is also believed to have gone against him.

• As many as 13 lawmakers in the past few days wrote to the party’s central leadership against Rawat’s work style, accusing him of not listening to them.

• “Bureaucrats are running the government and we are not being heard,” former Uttarakhand BJP chief Bishan Singh Chuphal wrote in a letter to Nadda in December last year.

• On Saturday, Rawat was called to Dehradun from Gairsain to attend an emergency core committee meeting, in which 45 of the party’s 56 MLAs participated.

• “He was clearly told that he would be replaced and there was growing resentment against him,” said a party leader.

• According to a central BJP leader, Rawat was replaced as an internal party survey showed the BJP was losing ground due to him even though Prime Minister Narendra Modi was still very popular in the state.

• Uttarakhand’s BJP in-charge Dushyant Gautam said Rawat would be accommodated in the national BJP and would have important responsibilities.

• Governor Baby Rani Maurya accepted his resignation and directed him to hold the post till the new chief minister takes charge.

• Rawat was the 10th chief minister of the state since its creation in 2000, with the Congress’s ND Tiwari being the only to have completed a full five-year term so far.

• The new team will have less than a year before the March-April 2022 assembly polls to recover the lost ground.

• The BJP will decide on his replacement on Wednesday morning.

• State minister Dhan Singh Rawat, Union education minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank, Rajya Sabha member Anil Baluni, and Lok Sabha member Ajay Bhatt are said to be the front runners for the post.

• A meeting of party legislators has been called in Dehradun on Wednesday to elect a new leader of the legislative party, who will then be administered the oath of office as the new chief minister.