BJP president Nitin Gadkari, at whose home party top leaders gathered for the second time tonight, announced later that Nishank will send in his resignation to the Governor tomorrow. Immediately thereafter, the BJP legislature party will meet to elect Khanduri as its new leader with BJP general secretary Ravi Shankar Prasad acting as the Central observer.

The BJP parliamentary board decided to replace Nishank with Khanduri on September 8. Sensing the urgency, Gadkari summoned Nishank the very next day. But he sent a message that he will come a day later to coincide his meeting with party leadership with the NIC meeting. This morning, too, he barely spoke to Gadkari and rushed directly to the Vigyan Bhawan.

Gadkari asked him to report at 4 pm for discussing the issue. But Nishank got late and eventually the BJP top brass consisting of Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley, Rajnath Singh (in charge of Uttarakhand), Dharmendra Pradhan and Thawarchand Gehlot dispersed without deciding anything because Nishank failed to turn up. Then Gadkari held a second meeting at his home around 7 pm in which Sushma, Rajnath, Ananth Kumar and Ram Lal came and they together worked at Nishank to quit immediately.

Formally, the BJP has refrained from saying why it suddenly thought of changing its leader in the state when the elections are just a couple of months away and Gadkari had already ruled out any change before the elections.

But it is well known that the party was pressurised by its veteran leader LK Advani to set out on another rath yatra to fight corruption. He fears BJP critics raised fingers at his party's chief ministers. First it was BS Yeddyurappa, now it is Nishank while similar allegations are there against Himachal Pradesh and Jharkahnd CMs as well.

The Uttarakhand media has been frequently reporting land and other scams relating to the Nishank government. By contrast, Khanduri has a clean image and commands respect among retired defence personnel in Uttarakhand, who form the bulk of BJP voters in that state. And yet nobody is sure whether this last-minute change will improve the sagging electoral prospects of the BJP in Uttarakhand.

Besides, the BJP feared that a sulking Khanduri could float his own third front and prove to be the BJP's nemesis.