UPDATED: May 17, 2021 08:54 IST
Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma; Photo by Bandeep Singh
On the night of March 19, in a government guest house in Sadiya, a town in Assam’s Tinsukia district, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, Chhattisgarh chief minister Bhupesh Baghel and All India Congress Committee general secretary in-charge of Assam, Jitendra Singh, were engaged in a strategic discussion over the party’s campaign for the ongoing assembly election in the state. Later that night, Himanta Biswa Sarma, who was leading the BJP’s campaign, sat listening to the 30-minute-long conversation playing on a cell phone of one of his aides. A local Congress leader present at the guest house had secretly recorded the conversation. This incident reflects to what extent Sarma went to ensure a victory for the BJP, a party he joined after quitting the Congress in 2015. Rahul Gandhi had declined to make Sarma chief minister of Assam in place of the incumbent Tarun Gogoi at the time.
BJP announces Dr Himanta Biswa Sarma as Assam Chief Minister
Guwahati, May 9 (UNI) The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has announced Dr Himanta Biswa Sarma to be the next Chief Minister of Assam.
The decision was taken after the newly elected legislators met today at Guwahati under three central observers of the BJP.
Meanwhile, the sitting Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal resigned from his on May 9. He met with the governor of Assam, Prof. Jagdish Mukhi at the Raj Bhawan in Guwahati and tendered his resignation.
The name of incumbent CM Sarbananda Sonowal and incumbent health minister Dr Himanta Biswa Sarma had been doing the rounds ever since the Assam Elections 2021 concluded and the BJP-led alliance came to power.
Himanta Biswa Sarma. File
| Photo Credit:
PTI
Chief Minister-designate also played a role as Health and Finance Minister in managing the COVID-19 pandemic in the State.
Himanta Biswa Sarma was elected the leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) legislative party in Assam, making him the Chief Minister-designate of the State, six years after he quit the Congress and joined the BJP.
For 52-year-old Mr. Sarma, it is the culmination of a career strewn with pulling off victories with political deftness, and assuming the top position after being the go-to man that kept the governments of late Tarun Gogoi and his immediate predecessor Sarbananda Sonowal going.
Himanta Biswa Sarma, 52, will succeed Sarbananda Sonowal as the 15th Chief Minister of Assam after the BJP-led alliance won with a landslide of 78 votes in the assembly elections, the results of which was declared on May 2.