Trivendra Singh Rawat would be the eighth chief minister of Uttarakhand after BJP won the elections with 57 seats in the 70 member state assembly. BJP leaders Dharmendra Pradhan, JP Nadda, Shyam Jaju, Saroj Pandey and observer Narendra Singh Tomar announced Rawat as the legislative party leader on March 17.

Fifty six year old Rawat defeated Congress’s Hira Singh Bisht in the Doiwala constituency with a margin of over 24,000 votes. This was his third win from the constituency where he contested elections since 2002. He will take oath in the state capital Dehradun on March 18.

Rawat started his political career as a Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) activist in 1983. He worked in the Sangh till 2002. He is reportedly a close aide of BJP president Amit Shah and was one of the three deputies who worked with him in Uttar Pradesh during the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.

He had played a vital role in Uttarakhand even before it formed a state. He was the organising secretary of the region and also the former state minister of agriculture. While he was the agriculture minister, he was accused of allegedly being involved in a “seed scam” but an investigation by the Congress government failed to prove him guilty.

He is also in charge of the BJP’s Jharkhand unit. He holds declared assets worth more than Rs 1 crore. Rawat has a post-graduate degree in History and a Diploma in Journalism from Hemvati Nandan Bahuguna Garhwal University.

—India Legal Bureau