Uttarakhand has a new chief minister yet again. Tirath Singh Rawat, who was sworn in today replacing Trivendra Singh Rawat, is the ninth chief minister in terms of personalities. This is the 12th time that a new CM took office at Dehradun, the capital of the hill state.
It has been a saga of unstable governments and short-lived chief ministerships in a short span of 20 years in this small state. Uttarakhand came into being in 2000 after it was split from the expansive Uttar Pradesh.
Of the nine chief ministers, six have been from BJP and three from Congress. The state all through has seen a two-party rule.
Except for a little over eight years, it was the BJP which ruled the state for most of the two decades. And it has the forgettable record of replacing chief ministers quite often – its longest-serving CM was T S Rawat – unseated on Tuesday. He served just under four years – three years and 357 days.
The shortest stint by a BJP CM was by Bhagat Singh Koshiyari – the controversial governor of Maharashtra currently – who could rule only for 122 days before he was shown the door.
Also read: Meet Tirath Singh Rawat, Uttarakhand's new chief minister
That the BJP had to change its chief ministers so many times is also a mirror to non-performance, corruption and intense factionalism in the party that prides on a “party with a difference”.
While BJP had to change its chief ministers so often, it was a Congress CM – the late Narayan Dutt Tiwari – who had the distinction of being the only chief minister from the state who could complete his term of five years. The other Congress CMs – Vijay Bahuguna and Harish Rawat – were not so lucky.
Following his ham-handed handling of the floods relief operation, Bahuguna was replaced by Harish Rawat. As the BJP engineered defections and took away Rawat’s MLAs, the state was put under President’s rule twice. The state saw defections, court battles and heated exchanges in the Assembly. When he took over as CM for the second time, Harish Rawat could stay in that position for just one day. However, finally, as the court allowed him to prove majority, he was back and ruled till the Assembly term ended in 2017.
As the BJP won the elections that year, T S Rawat, said to be a favourite of both the RSS and Union Home Minister and BJP strategist Amit Shah, was chosen as CM. But charges of corruption, inefficiency, controversial decisions and being unpopular among party MLAs forced the party to replace its CM one more time, just a year ahead of elections.