Thursday, 08 July 2021 | PNS | Dehradun/Nainital
The Nainital-Udham Singh Nagar MP, Ajay Bhatt was sworn in as a union minister of State in the union cabinet reshuffle on Wednesday. Chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami and Bharatiya Janata Party state president Madan Kaushik have congratulated him and thanked the Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his inclusion. Dhami said that Bhatt’s inclusion will definitely benefit Uttarakhand.
His inclusion in the council of ministers elicited celebrations from party workers in Nainital. The BJP workers in Nainital distributed sweets at Gandhi Park in Tallital area.
Bhatt is considered to be among the senior leaders of the BJP in Uttarakhand. Having served in various positions, he was the party’s state chief during the last Vidhan Sabha elections when the BJP won a thumping majority in the state though he himself lost the Assembly election in 2017 from Ranikhet, a constituency he has represented in the past. Just two years after the Assembly elections, in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, he managed to defeat former chief minister and senior Congress leader Harish Rawat by a margin of more than three lakh votes to be elected from the Nainital-Udham Singh Nagar constituency. During the previous state government headed by the Congress, Bhatt was the leader of opposition in the Assembly. As a cabinet minister in Uttarakhand in the past, he has held portfolios including Health.
In his 25 years of active politics starting since the days of undivided Uttar Pradesh, Bhatt has handled various roles.
According to political observers, the constituency which Bhatt represents in the Lok Sabha also includes Udham Singh Nagar area which has seen some opposition to the farm laws. The chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami is also a resident of Khatima in the same district. It remains to be seen whether the CM and a union minister of State from the area help placate voters in this area to the benefit of the BJP in the coming Assembly elections.
