Dehradun: Notwithstanding his loss in assembly elections, Pushkar Singh Dhami will continue as the Uttarakhand Chief Minister as BJP ended the suspense today announcing his name as the leader of BJP's legislature party. The swearing-in ceremony is likely to take place on Wednesday.
The decision was announced after the BJP's central observers for the state, Union minister Rajnath Singh and senior leader Meenakshi Lekhi, and the party's poll incharge for the state, Pralhad Joshi attended the meeting at the state party headquarters in Dehradun today.
Dhami under whose leadership the BJP had contested the February 14 Assembly polls was the frontrunner for the post. The BJP's dilemma on the choice of a chief minister for Uttarakhand was caused by Dhami's loss in Khatima, a seat he had been winning since the 2012 Assembly polls. The party had won 47 of the 70 seats in the Assembly polls, the results of which were announced on March 10.
Before the Uttarakhand assembly polls, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh had compared Pushkar Singh Dhami to cricketer Mahendra Singh Dhoni. Dhami, he said, was a good finisher, suggesting that he will get the BJP the runs it needed to win the election. While making the cricketing analogy Rajnath Singh reportedly said Dhami was working relentlessly as the CM and needed also to play a test match.
On Monday, the Bharatiya Janata Party picked him for the CM's post again, this time for the longer version of the game. Dhami was plucked out of obscurity by the BJP last July and made the Uttarakhand chief minister, with just months to go before the state elections. He also happened to be the third leader to occupy the CM's post during 2021. Earlier in the year, Trivendra Singh Rawat had to make way for Tirath Singh Rawat.
Dhami seemed to have justified the party's confidence in him. The BJP won Uttarakhand again, the first time in the state's 21-year history that a party has come to power for a second term in a row. But in his own Khatima constituency, Dhami lost by a slim margin of about 6,500 votes. At 45, he was the state's youngest chief minister when he first took over in July. The state was then grappling with a series of problems and with elections just round the corner Dhami had little time to prove himself.
The state's economy was battered by Covid, the Char Dham priests were agitating against a new regulatory board, and a massive Covid testing scam had hit the headlines earlier. Like other BJP chief ministers, Dhami styled himself as the one who executed Prime Minister Narendra Modi's grand vision for the state's development through a double-engine government. Dhami is often regarded as a protege of Maharashtra Governor and former Uttarakhand chief minister Bhagat Singh Koshyari, whom he served as an Officer on Special Duty (OSD) and an adviser.
He began his political career in 1990 with the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, the student wing of the BJP and was the state president of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha twice. He campaigned for reservation of jobs in industries for the local youth. Dhami's father retired as a subedar in Army. He was born in Pithoragarh's Tundi village, after the family shifted there from its ancestral village Harkhola. When he was in class 5, they moved to Khatima, which was to become Dhami's karmabhoomi' later. He won the assembly polls from there twice. He graduated from Lucknow University in Human Resource Management & Industrial Relations, and also has a degree in law.
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