Pushkar Singh Dhami has been elected as the new Chief Minister of Uttarakhand

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) announced on Saturday that Pushkar Singh Dhami will take over as Uttarakhand's new chief minister, after Tirath Singh Rawat, who resigned on Friday. Dhami was elected after a BJP legislature party meeting in Dehradun, which was chaired by Union agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar.

Dhami is an MLA from the Khatima assembly constituency in the hill state's Udham Singh Nagar district.

"My party has nominated an ordinary worker, the son of an ex-serviceman, to serve the state, who was born in Pithoragarh. We'll work together to improve people's lives. We accept the task of serving people in a short period of time with the cooperation of others," the new chief minister stated after being elected. He will take the oath of office later today.

Uttarakhand is expected to hold elections early next year. Trivendra Singh Rawat was appointed as the state's chief minister after the BJP won 57 of the state's 70 assembly constituencies in the 2017 assembly elections.

In less than four months, Dhami has become Uttarakhand's third chief minister. Tirath Singh Rawat, who was sworn in as Trivendra Singh Rawat's successor on March 10, resigned amid uncertainty regarding by-polls that he needed to win to stay in office. Tirath Singh Rawat, a Lok Sabha Member of Parliament from Garhwal, had until September 10 to get elected to the state assembly.

However, if the assembly's remaining term is shorter than a year, the Election Commission of India (ECI) has the option of not holding by-elections. He would not have been able to continue as chief minister in this case.