Her election to the post was a foregone conclusion as the main opposition Congress chose to stay out of contest.
The Congress on Tuesday sought to differentiate Rahul Gandhi's visit to flood-hit Uttarakhand from that of Narendra Modi, saying he is not going for "photo-ops" even as it faced the Bharatiya Janata Party attack for deriding the Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi's rescue efforts.
'At no point did Kamal Nath and Digvijaya indicate that the Opposition bloc was formed only to fight the Lok Sabha polls.'
Before forcing arguably the tallest Congress leader from Uttarakhand to bite the dust in the polls to make his maiden entry into the state assembly, Bisht had only won a zila panchayat poll in 2019.
Party leader Rajnath Singh along with state chief B C Khanduri and other senior BJP leaders welcomed former Congress members Renu Adhikari and Barkha Rani in New Delhi on Sunday, saying that more defections were in the pipeline.
The BJP, which rules the Centre, is in power in Uttarakhand, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Goa, Assam, Tripura, Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh, and is all set to get Madhya Pradesh back and snatch Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh from the Congress after today's vote count.
What happened in Uttarakhand is a national tragedy. Why couldn't Dr Manmohan Singh announce that he was forming an Uttarakhand Relief and Rehabilitation Committee, with himself as chairman but inviting Narendra Modi to become the deputy chairman, asks T V R Shenoy.
An average voter turnout of 20 per cent was recorded in the first four hours of voting in the bypolls to 15 assembly seats spread across Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Kerala and Uttarakhand on Wednesday amid an incident of stone pelting in a village in UP's Meerapur and allegations of police personnel deterring voters from casting their ballot.
A Central Bureau of Investigation court on Thursday acquitted senior vice president of Uttarakhand Congress, Suryakant Dhasmana, from the charges of being involved in the killing of a separate statehood activist in the Karanpur shooting case 18 years ago.
He won two terms in office, which was a stunning feat for a leader who used his silence as the most vocal weapon to change the economy and the lives of a billion people, asserts Tarun Vijay, former BJP MP and former Chief Editor, Panchjanya, the RSS weekly.
Dhami under whose leadership the BJP had contested the February 14 assembly polls was the frontrunner for the post.
The Congress on Friday declared a list of 51 candidates for the forthcoming elections to the 70-member Uttarakhand assembly. Harak Singh Rawat will be the Congress candidate from Rudraprayag seat while others in the fray include Jodh Singh Gunsola (Mussorie), Rajpal Singh Kharola (Rishikesh) and Satpal Brahmachari from Hardwar.
The defeat in the elections has put a question mark on the five-time MP and former Union minister's political future.
"Polling was held peacefully at the 11,697 polling booths across the state with 65.1 per cent of the electorate casting their votes till the close of polls," Chief Electoral Officer Saujanya who does not use a surname said.
Union Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal 'Nishank' will also participate in Uttarakhand BJP legislative party meeting in Dehradun later on Wednesday.
'I think Uttarakhand's development is only possible under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and I want to work towards making Uttarakhand a better state'
Sources said Rawat left the meeting as he was angry that a proposal for a medical college in Kotdwar -- his constituency -- was not being cleared by the cabinet.
'If Modi-Shah had not changed the leadership, one section would have parted ways with the BJP for sure.'
This time's Uttarakhand polls are a lot more than just the traditional Congress vs BJP battle. About a dozen rebel candidates, who could upset all calculations, are contesting as Independents. A look at the state's political dynamics before polling begins on February 15.
From Congress to BJP and back to Congress, Yashpal Arya, who was Uttarakhand's transport and excise minister in the Dhami government till the other day, has resigned and returned to his womb. But he is not the only one in the Land of the Gods to do so, reports Shishir Prashant.
A blame game began in the Congress on Tuesday as it failed in its bid to come back to power in Haryana after 10 years, with senior party leader Kumari Selja saying the party high command should assess all reasons that led to the disappointing result and identify the people responsible.
The Supreme Court on Monday imposed an interim stay on directives passed by the Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand governments that eateries along the Kanwar Yatra route must display names of owners.
As many as eight exit polls -- ABP News-CVoter, ETG Research, India Today- Axis My India, India TV-CNX, Zee News-DESIGNBOXED, India News, News 24 Today's Chanakya and Republic P-MARQ -- predicted 240-plus seats for the BJP in Uttar Pradesh, earmarking an average seat of the party with its allies in the state at 241 out of the total of 403 seats.
The BJP is beating the development drum this time more loudly to overcome many other hurdles besides anti-incumbency. While the party is claiming it is looking for a much bigger victory than in 2017, BJP observers are not too sure about it, reports Shishir Prashant.
The defeat of Dhami who led the BJP's campaign against the Congress in the state throws up a big question before the saffron party on the issue of choosing the next chief minister.
Just weeks before the assembly polls, expelled Bharatiya Janata Party's Uttarakhand minister Harak Singh Rawat rejoined his old party, the Congress, on Friday in the presence of former chief minister Harish Rawat.
The mosque's maulana and the mazar's caretakers said they were not aware of any administrative order in this regard and claimed this was for the first time that such a step had been taken during the yatra.
Campaigning came to an end on Saturday for the single-day election in Uttarakhand and Goa, two states known for political volatility where the Bharatiya Janata Party is attempting to retain power, and for the second phase of assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh on February 14.
In Uttar Pradesh, the saffron party's vote share went up to 41.8 per cent as against 39.67 per cent in the 2017 assembly polls, an increase of 2.13 per cent.
In UP and Bengal, it is willing to sacrifice its interests to stop the BJP and would work towards ensuring the BJP did not win incremental seats in Odisha and Telangana.
The electoral exercise, the first since the Lok Sabha elections, will decide the fate of many veterans and some debutantes including Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu's wife Kamlesh Thakur.
Opposition leaders believe this entire plan has been put in place to ensure that Mamata Banerjee is kept out of office in West Bengal.
After the setback in the Lok Sabha election, the ruling Congress on Friday recorded a big win in the bypoll to three assembly seats in Uttarakhand retaining Dharchula seat which went to Chief Minister Harish Rawat and wresting Doiwala and Someshwar seats from Bharatiya Janata Party.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi had on Tuesday asked its state unit chiefs in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Goa, Punjab and Manipur to put in their papers after the party's drubbing in the recently held Assembly polls in these states.
'The Congress can exist without (someone from) the Nehru-Gandhi family being its president.'
A bench of Justices Hrishikesh Roy and S V N Bhatti said it won't issue any clarification on the July 22 order as "We have said what needed to be said in our July 22 order. Can't force anyone to disclose names."
Dhami, who is a two-time MLA from Khatima in Udham Singh Nagar district, replaces Tirath Singh Rawat who resigned on Friday night.
The Congress on Tuesday announced its second list of 43 candidates for the Lok Sabha polls, fielding Kamal Nath's son Nakul Nath once again from Madhya Pradesh's Chhindwara and Ashok Gehlot's son Vaibhav Gehlot from Rajasthan's Jalore.
Maharaj, who joined the BJP in 2014 soon after Harish Rawat became the chief minister of Uttarakhand, alleged that the Congress is "looking at people as Hindu and Muslim face".
Known as a simple and down-to-earth leader, Tirath Singh Rawat takes over the rein of power in Uttarakhand at a time when the BJP is preparing for the state assembly polls due early next year.
