Former Uttarakhand chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat ‘won’t contest’ polls, holds ‘farewell lunch’ for supporters

DEHRADUN: Former Uttarakhand chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat announced on Wednesday that he will not be contesting the 2022 assembly polls in the state.
Rawat said this to party workers at a "farewell lunch" hosted at a hotel in Doiwala, on the outskirts of Dehradun and his assembly seat which he won on a BJP ticket in 2017, the year he went on to become the CM.
Soon after addressing his supporters, Rawat sent a letter to BJP national president JP Nadda, saying while he would help “youth CM” Pushkar Singh Dhami return to power, he may be exempted from contesting the polls this time.
Speaking to TOI, Rawat said, “I hosted the lunch as party members and supporters are extremely emotional. I did not want them to get a wrong or misleading impression when the list comes out and they are shocked to find my name missing. I wanted to avoid any kind of confusion, so I decided to personally tell them over lunch.”
On why he chose to step back, Rawat said the party may be contemplating a “bigger role for him”. He added: “Now the state has a youth CM and it is our duty to back him. I have requested all my supporters to back the new BJP candidate from Doiwala. The BJP list is expected in a day or two and we will get to know who the candidate is. In my tenure, I have brought some national-level projects to the constituency, carried out development works on a grand scale and want to thank the people of the constituency for supporting me throughout it all.”
In the letter to Nadda, dated January 18, Rawat wrote, “There has been a change of guard in Uttarakhand and the state...Under the changed political scenario, I should not contest the 2022 assembly elections, as discussed with you earlier. I feel honoured to have got the chance to serve devbhoomi Uttarakhand as the chief minister. For this, I would like to thank the Prime Minister and senior party members. I am thankful to the people of Uttarakhand, especially Doiwala, for showering their love and affection on me."
Rawat first won from Doiwala in 2002 and then again in 2007. In 2012, he shifted to Raipur, where he was defeated by Congress’s Umesh Sharma Kau. In the 2014 by-polls, he contested from Doiwala and lost to Congress’s Hira Singh Bisht. In 2017, BJP again gave him a ticket from Doiwala and he defeated Bisht by 24,869 votes, became the MLA from the seat and the Uttarakhand CM that year. In March last year, he was replaced as the CM by Tirath Rawat.