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Uttarakhand Chief Minister
Tirath Singh Rawat tendered
his resignation to Governor
Baby Rani Maurya late on
Friday, ending his tenure
just four months after he
took oath, and paved the
way for the appointment of a
third Chief Minister for the
State this year.
Mr. Rawat had been
camping in New Delhi since
Wednesday as he was caught
in a legal limbo over his con-
tinuation as Chief Minister —
while he is required to be
elected as a member of the
Uttarakhand Assembly with-
in six months of having ta-
ken oath as Chief Minister,
under the Representation of
the People Act, bypolls are
not held for vacant seats if
the tenure of the Assembly
expires within a year.
The Uttarakhand Assem-
bly’s term will expire in
March 2022.
Mr. Rawat is a Lok Sabha
MP from Uttarakhand and
had replaced Trivendra
Singh Rawat on March 10 as
CM after the latter quit.
The BJP has called a meet-
ing of its legislature party in
Uttarakhand on Saturday to
elect a new leader, with Un-
ion Agriculture Minister Na-
rendra Singh Tomar being
appointed as observer for
the meeting.
Many contenders
On a possible successor to
Mr. Rawat, while many
names are doing the rounds,
sources said only someone
who is already an MLA will Sources told The Hindu
that Mr. Rawat met BJP presi-
dent J.P. Nadda on Friday — a
second meeting in the three
days he had been in Delhi —
where he was asked to put in
his papers. In a letter to Mr.
Nadda, Mr. Rawat is believed
to have said that due to the
difficulties in holding a by-
poll within the September 10
deadline for being elected to
the Assembly, he was step-
ping down.
that Mr. Rawat’s frequent
courting of controversies
and the scandal of fake RT-
PCR tests during the Kumbh
Mela earlier this year and
mismanagement of the issue
had also cost him dear.
Mr. Rawat did not speak
on record about his inten-
tion to resign, while in Delhi,
only stating that it was “up to
the Election Commission of
India to hold bypolls”.
Sources, however, added