Trivendra Singh Rawat: From pracharak to Uttarakhand CM

DEHRADUN: After almost a week of speculations, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Friday announced the name of Trivendra Singh Rawat as the leader of its legislature party and the CM-designate of Uttarakhand. He will take oath of office on Saturday . Rawat's name was proposed by Prakash Pant and Satpal Maharaj, the two other leaders who were believed to be in contention for the post, and was approved by all the 56 elected MLAs of the party at a meeting held in a city hotel.

Rawat according to those who know him well, is a softspoken man with a penchant for getting things done -a trait that he is believed to have picked up early in life due to his association with the RSS as a pracharak.

Rawat joined the RSS in 1979 as a 19-year-old and steadily rose up the ranks, eventually heading the Dehradun unit of the Sangh. He remained active as a pracharak through most of the 1990s. In 1997, he was made general secretary , organisation, of the state BJP and played an important role in organising the party cadre both in the Garhwal and Kumaon regions.

In 2002, he contested state elections for the first time and won from the Doiwala seat of Dehradun. Five years later, he again won the seat and was made a cabinet minister in the BC Khanduri government and given the agriculture portfolio. His name featured in a “seed scam“ during that time. It was alleged that the agriculture department under his watch had committed financial irregularities.

In 2012, Rawat contested from the Raipur seat of Dehradun but lost. This was followed by another poll debacle when he lost the 2014 by-elections from the Doiwala seat.

The CM designate, who studied in a village school in Kherasain of Pauri Garhwal district, has a keen interest in both writing and reading, and is a post-graduate in journalism from the Hemvati Nandan Bahuguna University , Srinagar.
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