GUWAHATI: When Himanta Biswa Sarma is sworn-in as Assam’s 15th CM on Monday, he will be the seventh ex-student of northeast’s premier education institute, Cotton University (formerly Cotton College) to occupy the post of chief minister of the state.
The other ex-Cottonians who went on to become the chief minister include the state’s first CM Gopinath Bordoloi, Mahendra Mohan Chowdhury, Sarat Chandra Sinha, Jogendra Nath Hazarika, Hiteswar Saikia and Bhumidhar Barman.
Assam’s first premier in pre-Independence period, Saiyid Muhammad Saadulla, also studied at Cotton College, which was set up in 1901 by Sir Henry John Stedman Cotton, then chief commissioner of Assam. The college was upgraded to a university in 2017 by then education minister, who happens to be Himanta Biswa Sarma himself.