Two female ministers can find place in the council of ministers
Wednesday, 23 March 2022 | PNS | Dehradun
Chief minister-designate Pushkar Singh Dhami and the leadership of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) would have to do a delicate balancing act to accommodate the caste and regional equations in selecting the council of the ministers in Uttarakhand. Dhami is expected to take oath with his full team of 11 ministers at a grand swearing-in ceremony at Parade Ground today. The party insiders opine that the Dhami cabinet would be a mixture of the old and new faces. Even in the case of BJP deciding to retain all the old faces in the cabinet, the party would have to induct three new faces. These vacancies have been created by the exit of former cabinet ministers Harak Singh Rawat and Yashpal Arya (both had joined Congress before the elections) and defeat of Yatishwaranand from Haridwar Rural constituency. Apart from this the BJP is expected to drop a couple of ministers to make way for the younger lot. Speculation is being made about the speaker of fourth assembly Prem Chand Agarwal also being interested in joining the cabinet. In this eventuality the protem speaker Banshidhar Bhagat can be made the speaker of the assembly. It is pertinent to mention here that the BJP had given tickets to 22 new faces out of which 12 have won the election. Similarly there are more than two dozen legislators who are second or third time MLAs. In the last cabinet there was only one female minister (Rekha Arya) and in view of the large-scale support of women received by BJP in the recently concluded elections the party is expected to induct at least two women faces in the cabinet.
It is expected that the BJP can give a chance to Kotdwar MLA Ritu Khanduri, Haridwar MLA and BJP State president Madan Kaushik (in case he is removed from the post of party president), Rishikesh MLA and former speaker Prem Chand Agarwal, Bageshwar MLA Chandan Ram Das and Vikasnagar MLA Munna Singh Chauhan in the state cabinet. The names of Sitarganj MLA Saurabh Bahuguna and Devprayag MLA Vinod Kandari are being taken as possible young faces in the cabinet. Dhami is expected to retain Satpal Maharaj, Dhan Singh Rawat, Subodh Uniyal and Rekha Arya in the cabinet. In the balancing act in constituting his council of ministers Dhami would have to keep an eye on the caste equation of Rajput, Brahmin and Dalit. Similarly the regional aspirations of Garhwal, Kumaon and plain areas should also be fulfilled in filling the cabinet positions.
