BJP's Trivendra Singh Rawat takes oath as U'khand CM

Dehradun: Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader and former RSS pracharak Trivendra Singh Rawat took oath to become the 8th chief minister of Uttarakhand here on Saturday.

Along with the new chief minister,  Satpal Maharaj, Harak Singh Rawat, Madan Kaushik, Arvind Pandey, Subodh Uniyal, Yashpal Arya and Prakash Pant were also sworn in as cabinet ministers of the BJP government. 

On the other hand, Rekha Arya and Dhan Singh Rawat took oath as minister of state.

Rawat will also hold his first cabinet meeting on Saturday, mere hours after his swearing in.

The swearing-in ceremony was attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, party president Amit Shah and other top BJP leaders.

The BJP’s state legislature party had unanimously elected Rawat as its leader on Friday.

Narendra Singh Tomar, the BJP’s central observer for the legislature party’s meeting, said Rawat’s name was proposed by senior leaders and MLAs — Prakash Pant and Satpal Maharaj — and was seconded by a host of other legislators.

The saffron party won 57 of the total 70 seats in the recently-concluded Assembly elections.

Meanwhile, Rawat defeated Congress' Hira Singh Bisht in the Doiwala constituency with a margin of over 24,000 votes.

The 56-year-old BJP leader, who holds a masters degree in journalism, is currently in-charge of the party's Jharkhand unit.

He was elected to the assembly for the third time and was state agriculture minister in 2007-2012.

Rawat, who is considered to be close to BJP chief Amit Shah, was given responsibility of regional election in-charge during 2014 Lok Sabha elections in Uttar Pradesh, where the BJP emerged victorious.