Dehradun, Mar 24 (PTI) BJP's Kotdwar MLA Ritu Khanduri filed her nomination papers for the post of the Assembly Speaker on Thursday, said Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami here.

If elected, Khanduri will be the first woman Speaker of Uttarakhand.

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The Kotdwar MLA is the daughter of former chief minister Bhuvan Chandra Khanduri

She filed her nomination papers on Thursday, Dhami told reporters at a media briefing after his first cabinet meeting.

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The Speaker of Uttarakhand Assembly will be elected on Saturday at 11 am, Assembly Secretary Mukesh Singhal said earlier.

Khanduri's unopposed election to the post of speaker is a foregone conclusion as the BJP has 47 MLAs in the 70-member Assembly.

Khanduri is the state BJP Mahila Morcha president.

She had defeated former minister Surendra Singh Negi of the Congress in Kotdwar by more than 3,000.

A two-time MLA, Khanduri had won her first Assembly election from Yamkeshwar in 2017.

However, the party fielded her this time from Kotdwar, a seat represented in the last Assembly by former minister Harak Singh Rawat, who is now in the Congress.

A former teacher at Amity University, Noida, Khanduri is married to IAS officer Rajesh Bhushan, who is the Union Health Secretary at present.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)