SHIMLA: Jairam Thakur has been chosen to be the 13th Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh, the BJP announced today after a meeting attended by the party’s central observers and union ministers Nirmala Sitharaman and Narendra Singh Tomar.
The 52-year-old five-time MLA from Seraj in Mandi emerged as one of the frontrunners for the top post after the defeat of BJP leader Prem Kumar Dhumal in the 2017 Assembly polls, the results of which were announced last week.
Dhumal, who was expected to take over as the chief minister before the defeat, was in the reckoning till last night, when he opted out. A section of party legislators had backed the former chief minister.
Thakur, a former state unit chief and rural development and panchayati raj minister in a government headed by Dhumal, is a Rajput leader considered close to the RSS.
Thakur was introduced to the Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the student wing affiliated to BJP’s ideological mentor Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), during his graduation days. He was elected leader of the BJP legislature party today.
Thakur will be the first chief minister from Mandi, considered electorally significant because of the high number of seats in the region. Himachal’s chief ministers and political leaders mostly belong to or hailed from Shimla, Kangra and Sirmour.
Thakur is from a farming family of Mandi. He did his post-graduation from Panjab University in Chandigarh and decided to join politics when he was in his 20s.
“I thank the people of Himachal as well as party legislators for supporting my name for this post. I also thank Prem Kumar Dhumalji, Shanta Kumarji and J.P. Naddaji for supporting the nomination of my name.
