Term 2 For Pushkar Dhami As Uttarakhand Chief Minister, PM Attends Oath

Pushkar Singh Dhami was sworn in as Chief Minister of Uttarakhand, for the second time in eight months, at a grand ceremony in Dehradun in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Apart from PM Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, BJP president JP Nadda, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari, and other BJP Chief Ministers like Yogi Adityanath and Manohar Lal Khattar were also present.

46-year-old Pushkar Dhami was administered the oath by Uttarakhand Governor Lt Gen (retd) Gurmit Singh.

Eight Cabinet ministers were sworn in along with Mr Dhami. Five of them - Satpal Maharaj, Subodh Uniyal, Dhan Singh Rawat, Rekha Arya and Ganesh Joshi - were part of the previous Dhami-led cabinet.

Three new faces, Chandan Ram Das, Saurabh Bahuguna and Premchand Aggarwal, were also inducted into Mr Dhami's Cabinet today.

Mr Dhami, who lost the election from his seat even though he led the BJP to victory in Uttarakhand, was named for the top post on Monday after days of suspense. He needs to be elected to the state assembly within six months to continue as Chief Minister.

Several names, including that of former union minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank, Union Minister of State for Defence Ajay Bhatt, Rajya Sabha member Anil Baluni, MLA Dhan Singh Rawat and Uttarakhand Tourism Minister Satpal Maharaj had been doing the rounds as possible choices for Chief Minister.

The BJP's dilemma was caused by Mr Dhami's loss in Khatima, a seat he had been winning since the 2012 Assembly polls. Mr Dhami had lost to Congress candidate Bhuwan Chandra Kapri from Khatima by a margin of 6,579 votes.

Finally, the party decided to stick with Mr Dhami to avert a split in the state ahead of the 2022 national election and stick with the team that won the state polls for the BJP. The other eight in the cabinet have all won from their constituencies in the polls.

The BJP won 47 seats in the 70-member Uttarakhand assembly in the recent state elections. With this, the BJP has become the first party ever in Uttarakhand's 21-year-old history to return to power in consecutive elections.