Gairsain:
Congress MLA from Dharchula Harish Dhami today vacated his seat to pave the way for Uttarakhand Chief Minister Harish Rawat to contest from the constituency.
Mr Dhami, a known Harish Rawat loyalist, submitted his resignation to the Assembly Speaker Govind Singh Kunjwal.
The Speaker has accepted his resignation, Mr Dhami told reporters in Gairsain.
Mr Dhami's resignation from Dharchula Assembly seat ends months of speculation over which seats the Chief Minister would chose to contest to make his entry into the state assembly.
Mr Rawat who took over from Vijay Bahuguna as chief minister on February 1 this year has to become a member of the state Assembly within six months of swearing-in.
He was an MP from Haridwar in the last Lok Sabha at the time of swearing-in.
Looking for a safe seat in view of Congress losing all Lok Sabha seats to the BJP in Uttarakhand, Mr Rawat was torn between two choices of Dharchula and Doiwala.
While Mr Dhami had expressed his readiness to vacate his seat for the Chief Minister long back, there was also talk about Mr Rawat preferring to contest from Doiwala, an Assembly
segment of Haridwar Lok Sabha seat which he represented in the 15th Lok Sabha.
The only deterrent was his wife Renuka Rawat's performance in Doiwala segment in Lok Sabha polls where she finished behind her nearest rival and former chief minister Ramesh Pokhariyal Nishank by nearly 22,000 votes.