Incidentally, that day, immediately after Nityanand Swamy had left the stage after the oath taking ceremony, a group of youths had climbed the stage and broken furniture and other objects while shouting slogans. We then thought they were members of the Uttarakhand Kranti Dal who felt that their sacrifices had been ignored or those who wanted Gairsain to be the capital.But as later developments showed, they were supporters of a faction in the BJP led by Bhagat Singh Koshyari and Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank who were opposed to the appointment of Swamy.They finally had their way when in less than an year, in October 2001, BJP MLAs held a meeting in Dehradun removing Swamy and electing Koshyari as the new CM.The party went on to lose elections under his leadership while Koshyari continued to pay obeisance to the VHP and supporting their view that generating ‘power’ from the Ganges would take away its power and its purity. This game of ‘musical chairs’ continues till today, with the BJP’s top leadership in Delhi changing three of its CMs within a space on one year. The current CM, Pushkar Singh Dhami, was appointed only in July this year, and went on to court controversy due to the changes made by him in the bureaucracy, especially the appointment of an IPS officer, Abhinav Kumar, as his Additional Principal Secretary. This is the first of its kind after the birth of the state and political observers are waiting to see what signals it sends to the people in the run up to assembly elections due to be held in February.One must admit that the leaders of Devbhoomi are so honest that they do not hesitate to publicly level corruption charges against their own party leaders! Incidentally, ND Tewari of the Congress is the only CM to have completed his five year term in the state over the last 21 years. Swamy lasted 354 days, Koshyari 123 days, Khanduri 839 days, Nishank 808 days, Khanduri (again)185 days, Vijay Bahuguna 690 days, Harish Rawat 785 days and again 311 days, Trivendra Singh Rawat 1450 days and Tirath Singh Rawat 116 days.
Source link
