Ridge venue of Dhumal’s oath taking today

Shimla, December 29: A day after BJP’s impressive victory in the Assembly elections, Governor Justice (retd) V S Kokje on Saturday invited party’s chief ministerial candidate Prem Kumar Dhumal to form the next Government in Himachal Pradesh.

The swearing-in ceremony will be held on Sunday at 11 am at Shimla’s historic Ridge, instead of Raj Bhawan’s Darbar Hall. Top BJP leaders, including L K Advani, Arun Jaitely and chief ministers of Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, Chhattisgarh and Punjab, are expected to attend the ceremony.

This is for the first time in Himachal’s political history that a BJP Chief Minister will be taking oath at the Ridge after Y S Parmar, state’s first Chief Minister, took oath there on January 25,1971—when Himachal Pradesh attained full statehood.

Dhumal, 63, a sitting member of Parliament, will be taking oath as state’s Chief Minister for the second time. Earlier, he had become Chief Minister in 1998 but had to depend on former Union minister Sukh Ram’s support as the BJP did not get a majority of its own in the Assembly.

A letter appointing Dhumal as Chief Minister was handed over to party’s state president Jai Ram Thakur later in the day, after Dhumal was unanimously elected leader of the BJP Legislature Party and called on the Governor to stake his claim to form the Government. He was accompanied by Thakur, senior BJP leader Shanta Kumar and party’s in-charge for Himachal Pradesh Satyapal Jain.

In the 68-member House, elections for which were held in two phases, the BJP has won 41 seats while the Congress has 23. The BSP has won one seat and the rest three have gone to Independents. Of the three successful Independents, two are BJP rebels.

Earlier in the day, the BJP called a meeting of its MLAs at hotel Peterhoff. Dhumal’s name was proposed by Thakur and seconded by I D Dhiman, who was leader of the legislature party in the dissolved House. Immediately afterwards, Dhumal was declared a unanimous choice to head the next Government. A five-member party delegation then headed for Raj Bhawan to meet the Governor.

Speaking to reporters at Raj Bhawan, Dhumal said only he would take oath on December 30 and Cabinet formation would be done after consultations with the central leadership and Shanta Kumar.

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