Pushkar Dhami sworn in as Uttarakhand CM

Eight Cabinet ministers who also took oath along with Dhami are: Satpal Maharaj, Premchandra Agarwal, Ganesh Joshi, Dhan Singh Rawat, Subodh Uniyal, Saurabh Bahuguna, Rekha Arya and Chandan Ram Das. Agarwal, Bahuguna and Das are the new faces in the state cabinet that has an average age of 56 years.

Shri @pushkardhami takes oath as the Chief Minister of Uttarakhand, in Dehradun. pic.twitter.com/O0MsBuydne

— BJP (@BJP4India) March 23, 2022

Other than the Prime Minister, prominent among those who attended the event were Union ministers Amit Shah, Nitin Gadkari, Rajnath Singh, Prahlad Joshi; BJP president JP Nadda, Uttar Pradesh CM-designate Yogi Adityanath; and chief ministers Shivraj Singh Chouhan (Madhya Pradesh), Manohar Lal Khattar (Haryana) and Himanta Biswa Sarma (Assam).

First-time minister Saurabh Bahuguna, 43, is the son of former Uttarakhand CM Vijay Bahuguna and grandson of former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Hemwati Nandan Bahuguna. He represents the Sitarganj seat and is one of the two youngest ministers in the state.

Spiritual leader-cum-politician Satpal Maharaj, 70, had served as the Minister of PWD, Tourism, Cultural and Irrigation in the last cabinet. Maharaj was also an MP from the Congress before he joined the BJP in 2014. He is both the eldest as well as the richest minister in the state Cabinet.

A secretary of the party’s state unit, Dhan Singh Rawat had the portfolio of Higher Education, Cooperatives, Disaster Management, Dairy Development, and Protocols in the previous Cabinet. He had defeated state Congress president Ganesh Godiyal from the Srinagar assembly seat by 587 votes.

Former Assembly Speaker Prem Chand Agarwal will be a first-time minister. He has been an MLA from Rishikesh for three consecutive terms since 2007. Agarwal was the only minister on Wednesday who took the oath in Sanskrit.

Former soldier Ganesh Joshi was the Minister of Soldier Welfare, Industrial Development, MSME, Khadi and Village Industries in the last Cabinet. This is his fourth stint as a member of the legislative Assembly. A matriculate, Joshi is the least-educated member in the Dhami Cabinet.

Subodh Uniyal served as the Agriculture Minister in the previous government. This is his second stint as a legislator from the Narendra Nagar constituency in Tehri Garhwal district. Uniyal was also the spokesperson of the Uttarakhand government.

The only woman in the new Cabinet, Rekha Arya, 43, is an MLA from Someshwar constituency and she was also a minister in the previous Cabinet.

A four-time MLA from the Bageshwar (SC) constituency, Chandan Ram Das will serve as a minister for the first time.