In a day of dramatic developments, Uttarakhand Chief Minister (CM) Trivendra Singh Rawat resigned and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) announced it had convened a meeting of the legislature party on Wednesday morning to elect a new CM. While Rawat would like his man, Dhan Singh Rawat, to succeed him, there are a host of candidates for the job, including former CM and Union Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’, party leader Anil Baluni, state Cabinet minister Satpal Maharaj, Uttarakhand BJP General Secretary Suresh Bhatt, and Nainital-Udham Singh Nagar Member of Parliament (MP) Ajay Bhatt, as senior leaders say “all options are open”.
Rawat’s exit is both humiliating for him and unusual: humiliating because till earlier in the week, he was at the state’s new capital, Gairsain, where he had convened a meeting of the Assembly; and he was in the middle of putting final touches to plans to celebrate four…
