Tirath Singh Rawat late on Friday night joined the long list of Chief Ministers in Uttarakhand who were not able to complete their tenure. Rawat met the Governor Baby Rani Maurya after 11 pm on Friday after a series of high-level meetings at the BJP’s central headquarters in Delhi.

The BJP decided to not go for the by-election for CM for a number of reasons, a prime among which is the situation in West Bengal where Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee was defeated in Nandigram by Suvendu Adhikari. Banerjee too has to seek re-election in a by-poll amid the Covid-19 pandemic. Rawat was a Lok Sabha MP from Pauri Garhwal, who took oath as Uttarakhand CM in March. He had to be elected to the State Assembly within six months of swearing in as CM. By September, Rawat had to be elected to the Assembly.

If Rawat’s by-election was to be held in Uttarakhand, the BJP could not have raised objections to another by-poll in Bengal too. The Trinamool Congress, in the meantime, has also sought to re-create the Upper House in Bengal which had been abolished several decades back by the Left Government.

Hence Rawat was summoned to the capital earlier this week along with some MLAs and the party considered various options including selecting an alternative CM from the elected MLAs.

The party decided against creating the unseemly spectacle of a by-election to elect a Chief Minister just six months before the General Assembly polls. This is matched by Rawat’s spectacularly abysmal innings as CM, marked by holding the Kumbh in Haridwar, which acted as a super-spreader event in the deadly second surge of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Ever since Uttarakhand was carved out of Uttar Pradesh in November, 2000, only one Chief Minister – ND Tiwari of the Congress – has completed his five-year term in office. All the rest have been forced to vacate office before time.

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