PIONEER EDGE NEWS SERVICE/ Dehradun
Five new ministers joined the cabinet of chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami in the much awaited cabinet expansion on Friday. In a solemn ceremony held at Lok Bhawan, the governor lieutenant general ( retd) Gurmit Singh administered oath of secrecy to Rajpur Road MLA Khajan Dass, Haridwar rural MLA Madan Kaushik, Rudraprayag MLA Bharat Singh Chaudhary, Roorkee MLA Pradip Batra and Bhimtal MLA Ram Singh Kaida.
Among the ministers who took oath on Friday, three, Bharat Singh Chaudhary, Pradeep Batra and Kaida have become ministers for the first time while senior leader Madan Kaushik became minister for the fourth time having worked as minister under Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank, Bhuwan Chandra Khanduri and Trivendra Singh Rawat. Similarly, Khajan Dass has become a minister for the second time.
The oath ceremony was conducted by chief secretary Anand Bardhan in the presence of former Maharashtra governor and Uttarakhand CM Bhagat Singh Koshyari, cabinet ministers Subodh Uniyal, Rekha Arya, Ganesh Joshi and Saurabh Bahuguna. The president of Uttarakhand BJP Mahendra Bhatt, Rajya Sabha MP Naresh Bansal and others also attended the ceremony.
It is worth mentioning here that three positions in the Dhami cabinet were vacant since he took over the reins of the State in March 2022 for the second consecutive time. After the death of Chandan Ram Das in April 2023, the number of vacant berths in the cabinet increased to four. After the resignation of Prem Chand Aggarwal in March, last year over alleged use of foul language by him against the people of mountainous parts of the State, the number of vacancies in the cabinet increased to five.
After the swearing in ceremony, the newly inducted ministers met the CM at his residence to express their gratitude.
CM said that after the expansion all the positions in the cabinet are now filled. He said that the cabinet is dedicated to the development of the State and the people of the State will benefit from the experience and enthusiasm of the newly inducted ministers.
