Pushkar Singh Dhami swore in as Uttarakhand’s Chief Minister for the second time. 

Dhami took oath at the Parade Ground, Dehradun in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, BJP president JP Nadda and a host of party leaders including the chief ministers of various BJP ruled states. 

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Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, his Madhya Pradesh counterpart Shivraj Singh Chauhan, Haryana CM Manohar Lal Khattar and his Himachal Pradesh counterpart Jairam Thakur were also present. 

 It will be Dhami’s second consecutive term in office as Chief Minister. He had been brought in as a replacement for former chief minister Tirath Singh Rawat in July last year towards the fag end of the BJP government’s last tenure. The BJP had contested the February 14 assembly polls seeking a full five-year term for the state’s youngest CM.

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Under Dhami’s leadership, BJP won 47 off the 70 seats in Uttarakhand. According to constitutional norms, Dhami will have to get elected to the state assembly within six months of assuming office.

His loss had put the BJP in a quandary, but after hectic parleys and long discussions of its top brass with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the party preferred continuity over change.

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Dhami’s reappointment is a message that the party is looking for a stable government in the run-up to the 2024 general elections, party sources said.

“The party has shown faith in the young generation to lead the state and realise the vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi for Uttarakhand,” said Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank, a former chief minister and ex-Union minister who was present in the legislature party meeting that elected Dhami.

In the 2017 assembly elections of Himachal Pradesh, the BJP’s chief ministerial face Prem Kumar Dhumal lost his assembly seat but the party won the assembly polls. At that time, the party chose a sitting MLA rather than Dhumal as the CM.

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Similarly, in the same year in Goa polls, the party came second with 13 MLAs but it formed the government with the support of several small parties. The BJP chose sitting MLA Pramod Sawant over its sitting chief minister Laxmikant Parsekar, who had lost his assembly seat.

However, a senior leader in the party said the situation in Himachal Pradesh, Goa and Uttarakhand was different from each other.

In the case of Himachal, the party chose a sitting MLA as it was looking for the next generation of leadership because Dhumal was already in his seventies.

Whereas in Goa, the BJP had to take support from other parties for forming the government and had to keep their preferences in mind, the leader said.