Year 2021: Meet the CMs who Stepped Down, Returned to Power

New Delhi, Dec 11: The year 2021 saw a new trend in Indian politics where the national parties replaced their underperforming Chief Ministers with new ones. A total of six replacements happened in the last 12 months. In addition to it, a few retained their positions while some returned the power in 2021.

Meet the new Chief Ministers in 2021:

Trivendra Singh Rawat Makes Way for Tirath Singh
Trivendra Singh Rawat was replaced by Lok Sabha MP Tirath Singh as the Chief Minister of Uttarakhand in March. His decision to exit came a year before the state went for elections. His style of governance had not gone well with the party leaders.

Himanta Biswa Sarma Steps Into Shoes of Sarbananda Sonowal as Assam CM
Himanta Biswa Sarma became the new Chief Minister of Assam. He replaced Sarbananda Sonowal after the saffron party was re-elected in May.

Pushkar Singh Dhami Replaces Tirath Singh Rawat as Uttarakhand Chief Minister
In a matter of four months, Tirath Singh Rawat was replaced by Pushkar Singh Dhami. One of the reasons why Rawat stepped down was his inability to get elected to the assembly within six months after taking the oath.

BSY Replaced by Basavaraj Bommai in Karnataka
Lingayat strongman BS Yediyurappa made way for Basavaraj Bommai as Chief Minister of Karnataka in July. As he had passed the party's unwritten rule of retirement at 75, the party decided to replace him with Bommai.

Bhupendrabhai Patel Replaces Vijay Rupani as Gujarat CM
Bhupendrabhai Patel was replaced by Vijay Rupani as Gujarat Chief Minister in September. He resigned 14 months before the state election.

Amarinder Singh replaced by Charanjit Singh Channi as Punjab Chief Minister
Congress replaced Amarinder Singh with Charanjit Singh Channi as the new Chief Minister of Punjab. While the change-in-guard in the BJP was largely smooth, it was not the same in the case of Congress.
The 79-year-old left the party following his fallout with state chief Navjot Singh Sidhu and slammed the state as well as the central leaders for forcing him to resign from the position.

Leaders Who Won Elections to Become Chief Ministers
These changes apart, MK Stalin from the DMK became the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu after defeating the AIADMK in the assembly elections.

Similarly, Mamata Banerjee's TMC registered a thumping victory in West Bengal elections and returned as the Chief Minister for the third time.

In a departure from Kerala's political tradition in which the state switches between LDF and UDF, the Pinarayi Vijayan-led Left Democratic Front retained power.

Whereas N Rangaswamy, founder leader of All India NR Congress, was sworn in as the Chief Minister of Puducherry for the fourth time. In the 30-member legislative assembly, his party won 10 seats and the BJP bagged six seats.