U’KHAND CM

leadership against Rawat. “Bureaucrats are running the government and we are not being heard,” former Uttarakhand BJP chief Vishan Singh Chufal had alleged in a letter to Nadda in December 2020.

On Saturday, the

Rawat was called to Dehradun from Gairsain to attend an emergency core committee meeting, in which 45 of the party’s 56 MLAs participated. “He was clearly told that he would be replaced and there was growing resentment against him,” said a party leader on the condition of anonymity.

According to a central BJP leader, Rawat was replaced as an internal survey of the party showed that the

BJP was losing ground in the hill state even though Prime Minister Narendra Modi was still very popular. “The decision to bring Char Dham temples under the state government has not gone down well with the priest community who are hardcore BJP voters. Reducing the period of Haridwar Mahakhumb to one month from three was another such decision,” the leader said.

Uttarakhand’s BJP in-charge Dushyant Gautam said Trivendra Singh would be accommodated in the national BJP and he would be given important responsibilities. Former chief minister and Congress leader Harish Rawat said the central BJP has made it clear that the party’s four year rule in the state was a failure. “This change shows now nothing can stop the Congress from coming to power in the state. He (Trivendra Singh Rawat) didn’t do much for the employment of youth in the state or for the farmers, who continue to struggle in the hill state,” Harish Rawat said.