Uttarakhand CM Trivendra Singh Rawat likely to resign today, amid political crisis: Source

Amid speculation over the change of leadership in Uttarakhand, Chief Minister Triverdra Singh Rawat is expected to resign on Tuesday, as per sources. Rawat is expected to announce his resignation at a press conference that he will hold later in the day, following which he will go to the Governor's residence to formally tender his resignation.

As per sources, the political crisis in the state was triggered when the Aam Aadmi Party sensed a political opportunity there and reached out to a senior minister in the Uttarakhand government, offering him to be the CM face. Following this, when the BJP sensed trouble, a churn for leadership had already begun. Trivendra Singh Rawat was called to Delhi and shown an internal survey demonstrating his dropping leadership graph which he was allegedly unable to explain to the party's satisfaction. As per sources, he's been asked to transition smoothly. There are said to be two names in the race to replace him.

Rawat late on Monday met BJP president JP Nadda at the latter's residence in New Delhi. Top central BJP leaders have also met to discuss the developments. Last week, BJP Uttarakhand held an emergency core group meeting which was attended by observer Raman Singh, Dushyant Gautam, Rawat, Ajay Bhatt, Naresh Bansal, Mala Rajya Laxmi, and others.

BJP's top observers had been rushed to the state, with some MLAs purportedly unhappy and their dissatisfaction allegedly having something to do with Rawat's 'working style.' Amid this, the Budget session of the assembly had been cut-short abruptly. Rawat had also met the senior BJP leaders who had arrived in Dehradun.

Uttarakhand's history of sitting CMs being replaced

Since the formation of the hilly state from Uttar Pradesh in 2000, both BJP and Congress which have ruled the state have often changed their CMs, resulting in their electoral loss in the next election. Nityanand Swami, who was the state's first CM was replaced with Bhagat Singh Koshyari in 2002. On coming to power, Congress chose Narayan Dutt Tiwari - who completed his full term. In 2007, 2009, and 2011, BJP had two CMs Bhuwan Chandra Khanduri and Ramesh Pokhriyal. Similarly, after the 2013 Kedarnath flash-floods, Congress replaced CM Vijay Bahuguna with Harish Rawat culminating in its loss in 2017. Uttarakhand is set to go to the polls again in 2022.