History of the Uttarakhand Legislative Assembly

The Uttarakhand Legislative Assembly, also known as the Uttarakhand Vidhan Sabha, is a unicameral governing and law making body of Uttarakhand, one of the 28 states of India. It is seated at Dehradun, the winter capital, and Gairsain, the summer capital of Uttarakhand. The total strength of the assembly is 70 Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLA).

Seats

Between 2002 and 2020, Uttarakhand Legislative Assembly had 71 seats, including one reserved seat for the member of Anglo-Indian community that was abolished on 25 January 2020 by the 104th Constitutional Amendment Act, 2019, reducing the strength of Assembly from 71 to 70 seats.

2016 Assembly suspension

In March 2016, capping a nine-day high-voltage political drama, the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Union Government brought Uttarakhand under President's rule citing a constitutional breakdown in the wake of a rebellion in then state-ruling Indian National Congress, which slammed the decision calling it a "murder of democracy" and a "black day".

President Pranab Mukherjee signed the proclamation under Article 356 of the Constitution of India dismissing the INC-ruled State Government, the Chief Minister Harish Rawat and placing the Assembly under suspended animation on the recommendation of the Union Cabinet.

The Union Government was of the view that continuance of the Rawat government was "immoral and unconstitutional" after 18 March 2016, when the Uttarakhand Assembly Speaker declared the appropriation bill "passed" in controversial circumstances without allowing a division pressed for by 35 MLAs, including 9 rebel Congress legislators.

The Union Cabinet had held an emergency meeting on Saturday night presided over by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who had cut short a visit to Assam to return to the New Delhi for the purpose.

The Cabinet considered several reports received from Governor Krishan Kant Paul, who had described the political situation as volatile and expressed apprehensions over possible pandemonium during the scheduled trial of strength in the Assembly on Monday.

The purported CD of the sting operation conducted against the Chief Minister that was in public domain on Saturday was understood to have been factored into the decision of the Cabinet which found it as a case of horse trading.

Additionally Two Uttarakhand MLAs, one each from Indian National Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party were on 9 June suspended for cross-voting during the floor test that was held on 10 May. Speaker Govind Singh Kunjwal suspended BJP MLA Bhim Lal Arya and INC MLA Rekha Arya.

Electionwise Composition of Assembly

Uttarakhand Legislative Assembly year-wise election results

Party		Year
		2022 Elections	2017 Elections	2012 Elections	2007 Elections	2002 Elections
	Bahujan Samaj Party	02	–	03	08	07
	Bharatiya Janata Party	47	57	31	35	19
	Indian National Congress	19	11	32	21	36
	Nationalist Congress Party	–	–	–	–	01
	Uttarakhand Kranti Dal[A]	–	–	01	03	04
	Independent	02	02	03	03	03
Total Seats		70	70	70	70	70

List of Assemblies

The following is the list of all the Uttarakhand Legislative Assemblies

Assembly	Election Year	Speaker	Chief Minister	Party		Opposition Leader	Party
Interim Assembly	N/A	Prakash Pant	Nityanand Swami (2000–01)		Bharatiya Janata Party	Indira Hridayesh		Indian National Congress
			Bhagat Singh Koshyari (2001–02)
1st Assembly	2002	Yashpal Arya	Narayan Datt Tiwari		Indian National Congress	Bhagat Singh Koshyari (2002–03)		Bharatiya Janata Party
						Matbar Singh Kandari (2003–07)
2nd Assembly	2007	Harbans Kapoor	Bhuwan Chandra Khanduri (2007–09)		Bharatiya Janata Party	Harak Singh Rawat		Indian National Congress
			Ramesh Pokhriyal (2009–11)
			Bhuwan Chandra Khanduri (2011–12)
3rd Assembly	2012	Govind Singh Kunjwal	Vijay Bahuguna (2012–14)		Indian National Congress	Ajay Bhatt		Bharatiya Janata Party
			Harish Rawat (2014–17)
4th Assembly	2017	Premchand Aggarwal	Trivendra Singh Rawat (2017–21)		Bharatiya Janata Party	Indira Hridayesh (2017–21)		Indian National Congress
			Tirath Singh Rawat (2021)
			Pushkar Singh Dhami			Pritam Singh (2021–22)
5th Assembly	2022	Ritu Khanduri Bhushan				Yashpal Arya

Speakers

No.	Name	Portrait	Constituency	Term		Party		Assembly (Election)
1	Prakash Pant		MLC for Kumaon Local Authorities	12 March 2001	14 March 2002	Bharatiya Janata Party		Interim Assembly
2	Yashpal Arya		Mukteshwar	15 March 2002	11 March 2007	Indian National Congress		1st Assembly (2002)
3	Harbans Kapoor		Dehradun	12 March 2007	13 March 2012	Bharatiya Janata Party		2nd Assembly (2007)
4	Govind Singh Kunjwal		Jageshwar	26 March 2012	20 March 2017	Indian National Congress		3rd Assembly (2012)
5	Premchand Aggarwal		Rishikesh	23 March 2017	21 March 2022	Bharatiya Janata Party		4th Assembly (2017)
6	Ritu Khanduri Bhushan		Kotdwar	26 March 2022	Incumbent			5th Assembly (2022)

Notes

• ^A In the 2012 Assembly election, Uttarakhand Kranti Dal contested as "Uttarakhand Kranti Dal (P)" led by then party president Trivendra Singh Panwar. The original party name and the election symbol (chair) was frozen by the Election Commission of India following the factionism and leadership dispute within the party that led to its break-up. Its original name and party symbol were restored in 2017.

External links

• Uttarakhand Lok Sabha Election 2019 Result Website
• Elected Members of Legislative Assembly of Uttarakhand, Official list Govt. of Uttarakhand.
• Members of Uttarakhand Legislative Assembly
• Uttarakhand Legislative Assembly
• President’s rule in Uttarakhand; Congress says ‘murder of democracy’