Dehradun: A 10 member strong council of ministers of the BJP government led by the chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat was sworn in by the Governor KK Paul at a public function on Saturday, which was attended by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party chief Amit Shah.
The BJP accommodated scores of former Congress leaders who had switched ranks after rebelling against the leadership of the former chief minister Harish Rawat in the Rawat government. Harak Singh Rawat and Yashpal Arya got Cabinet ranks. They had rebelled against the Congress government and later joined the BJP. Another Congress rebel Rekha Arya, who had later joined the BJP, was sworn in as the Minister of state in the new government.
Prakash Pant, Satpal Maharaj, Subodh Uniyal, Arvind Pandey and Madan Kaushik were sworn in as Cabinet ministers. Dhan Singh Rawat wad inducted in the council as a state minister.
The chief minister was once an editor of a vernacular newspaper before he began working for the RSS as a pracharak. He afterwards came to the BJP and looked after the affairs of Jharkhand. With 57 MLAs in the kitty, the BJP is hoping that Rawat would bring in the sense of political stability in the hilly state, which has seen nine chief ministers since 2000 when it was carved out of Uttar Pradesh during the NDA government at the Centre headed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
The swearing in was attended by chief ministers of Haryana and Jharkhand M L Khattar and Raghunat Das respectively. Union ministers Uma Bharati, JP Nadda also attended the ceremony, besides the BJP organisational secretary Ram Lal and Shyam Jaju. Former chief ministers of Uttarakhand were also on the stage, which included B C Khandiri, Vijay Bahuguna and Harish Rawat.