New Delhi:
Uttarakhand is all set to get a new chief minister as the Bharatiya Janata Party on Saturday asked the current incumbent Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank to step down. Mr Nishank will be replaced by B C Khanduri who will be sworn in at 4 pm today.
Sources had earlier told NDTV that Mr Nishank may be asked to step down in the wake of a series of corruption charges against him.
Party president Nitin Gadkari though trashed the reports of corruption, dubbing them as "inaccurate".
Mr Nishank was in Delhi today to attend the National Integration Council (NIC) meeting. He met Mr Gadkari at his residence in the morning. The meeting was also attended by senior BJP leaders Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley and Rajnath Singh, who has now been given special charge of Uttarakhand elections.
Speaking to reporters, Mr Singh had said: ''The decision will be announced by evening. We will discuss Uttarakhand just like we are discussing other states.''
Sources had said that Mr Nishank's exit from the chief minister's post was imminent. Sources added that he, however, would be given an opportunity to go gracefully as the party does not want to ruffle any feathers ahead of the forthcoming Assembly elections.
PTI had added that according to unconfirmed sources, when the senior leaders apprised Mr Nishank of their decision, he offered to resign. A "respectable exit plan" was being worked out.
While leaving Dehradun for Delhi yesterday, Mr Nishank had refused to comment on the reports of a possible leadership change in Uttarakhand.
"You have the news, I don't. I just want to say that the BJP is strong. The BJP will definitely be back in power in 2012 and we will take our Vision 2020 forward," he had said.