In a shocking development that sparked a national furor, the Chief Minister of the BJP ruling state has resigned in the wake of intra-party dissents over his flawed leadership. The development has come after the BJP's high command had held discussions with the party's members and legislators in the state over the leadership of the Chief Minister. 

Trivendra Singh Rawat had been serving as the Chief Minister of Uttarakhand and on Tuesday, he stepped down from the post and moved his resignation to the Governor. According to reports, his resignation has come a day after he met central BJP leaders in the midst of speculations that the Central ruling party is considering removing him from the post and replacing him to reduce large-scale setbacks. 

A section of BJP leaders in the state had expressed the disappointments over Rawat's leadership, triggering the dispute within the party. Uttarakhand will be going for the legislative assembly polls by this year-end and the party leaders have alarmed the leadership that winning the election under the rule of Rawat is not possible and the electoral prospects under him are dimmed. Following the emergence of the dispute, the BJP leadership had seriously enquired about the matter.

On Monday evening, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, BJP Chief JP Nadda, BJP National General Secretary BL Santhosh, and BJP's Uttarakhand in-charge Dushyant Gautam had discussed the political development in the state. The meeting of the top leaders was called after several MLAs in the state had questioned Rawat's style of functioning and it was called two days after the report obtained by the party over Rawat's leadership. 

According to reports, the BJP leadership had on Saturday sent former Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh and Dushyant Gautam as observers to meet the state leaders and get feedback. Both the observers met the members of the core committee and obtained their opinion. Following the opinion, the report was submitted to the BJP leadership and in the report, the observers highlighted that it will be difficult for the party to win the assembly polls. 

After being alerted, it was speculated that the BJP leadership would ask Rawat to step down from the post. The RSS (root body of BJP) had also expressed disappointment over Rawat's leadership and as speculated, Rawat had on Tuesday decided to resign. On Tuesday, Rawat met Governor Baby Rani Maurya at the Raj Bhavan in Dehradun and tendered his resignation. Rawat had become the Chief Minister in 2017 and while addressing the reporters following his resignation, Rawat said, "The party had given me a golden opportunity to serve this state for four years and I had never thought that I would get such an opportunity". 

"The party has now decided that the opportunity to serve as Chief Minister should be given to someone else now", he added as he demitted the office of the Chief Minister. The reports close to the developments say that Ajay Bhatt and Anil Baluni, who are the two senior leaders of the party in the state, are in the race to succeed Rawat as the next Chief Minister and it has been expected that the party will announce the next Chief Minister soon. 

The current legislative assembly in Uttarakhand is formed in 2017 and Trivendra Singh Rawat won the polls in 2017 and became the eighth Chief Minister of Uttarakhand. He took the office on March 18, 2017, and demitted the office on March 9, 2021. In the 70-member assembly, BJP enjoys a strong majority of 56 seats while the Congress party has 11 seats. With the view of retaining the power in the upcoming assembly polls, the BJP will now nominate a notable face as the next Chief Minister of the state.