Pushkar Singh Dhami to be sworn-in as Uttarakhand CM today, PM Modi, Amit Shah to attend grand ceremony

Pushkar Singh Dhami`s oath-taking ceremony for a second term is scheduled to take place at 2.30 pm.

New Delhi: Pushkar Singh Dhami will be sworn-in as Uttarakhand Chief Minister for a second term today (March 23, 2022) at a grand ceremony that will be held at the Parade Ground in Dehradun in the presence of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) top brass, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Minister Amit Shah.

The oath-taking ceremony of the 12th chief minister of the hill state is scheduled to take place at 2.30 pm.

Ahead of the ceremony, Dhami also offered prayers at the Tapkeshwar Mahadev temple in Dehradun.

Apart from Modi and Shah, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, BJP president JP Nadda, Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma and Dhami's Himachal Pradesh counterpart Jai Ram Thakur will attend the ceremony.

Meanwhile, having decided to retain Pushkar Singh Dhami as the chief minister, the BJP has now moved on to the next job at hand, cabinet formation in Uttarakhand.

At least three new inductions in Dhami's new cabinet are a certainty. As Harak Singh Rawat and Yashpal Arya, who were members of the last cabinet, joined the Congress ahead of the Assembly polls and former minister Swami Yatishwaranand lost his seat, the party needs to pick up three new faces to fill the slots that were occupied by them.

Probables who could be brought in for the three slots include former chief minister Vijay Bahuguna's son and Sitarganj MLA Saurav Bahugua, former chief minister Bhuvan Chandra Khanduri's daughter and Kotdwar MLA Ritu Khanduri Bhushan and Dilip Singh Rawat, who scored an emphatic win over Harak Singh Rawat's daughter-in-law, Anukriti Gusain, in Lansdowne.

If inducted into Dhami's new cabinet, all three of them will make their debut as ministers.

Old faces likely to be retained are Satpal Maharaj, Dhan Singh Rawat, Rekha Arya and Arvind Pandey, who were all members of Dhami's last cabinet.

The BJP, notably, won the popular mandate for the second consecutive term in Uttarakhand and bagged 47 seats in the 70-member assembly.

(With agency inputs)