Uttarakhand minister threatens to resign; BJP says issue resolved

According to the sources, Rawat, who holds the forest, environment, labour and employment portfolios, walked out the meeting as he was upset about the state government’s alleged inaction over a proposed medical college in his constituency Kotdwar.

BJP MLA Umesh Sharma Kau, who had been assigned the task of dissuading Rawat, said on Saturday that his grievance had been addressed. He said the issue had been settled with the intervention of the central leadership and Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami.

Rawat’s proposal for the medical college in Kotdwar has been accepted and he has also been assured that the budget for the project will be released by Monday, Kau said.

Asked whether Rawat had agreed not to resign, Kau, the MLA from Raipur , said: “No one is going anywhere”.

“We will all work as true soldiers of the BJP,” Kau said.

Pradesh BJP president Madan Kaushik also denied that Rawat had resigned, saying “all is well”.

State government spokesperson Subodh Uniyal said Rawat had threatened that he would resign from the post. He said no resignation letter has been received.

Rawat joined the BJP in 2017 from Congress and won from the Kotdwar Assembly seat. He had contested as a Congress candidate from Garhwal in the 2014 general elections. Earlier, he was a minister in the Kalyan Singh government in Uttar Pradesh in the 1990s. The BJP has already changed two chief ministers — Trivendra Singh Rawat and Tirat Singh Rawat — before putting Dhami in charge in Uttarakhand.

Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami, meanwhile, said that he and Rawat they would sort out their issues and that it was common for representatives to think about their constituency during elections. –PTI inputs