Assam Cabinet expansion: no room for high-profile Congress defectors

way2barak, June 5: Twelve more ministers are set to be inducted into Assam’s Council of Ministers today.

With this, the total number of ministers in the Cabinet will increase to 17, of whom 12 were part of the ministry in Sarma’s first term as Chief Minister.

On May 12, along with Sarma, Rameswar Teli and Ajanta Neog from the BJP, Atul Bora from the Asom Gana Parishad and Charan Boro from the Bodoland People’s Front had been sworn in.

The 12 MLAs who Sarma announced on Thursday would be inducted into the Cabinet include eight from the last government — Ashok Singhal, Bimal Borah, Jayanta Mallabaruah, Kaushik Rai, Keshab Mahanta, Krishnendu Paul, Pijush Hazarika and Ranoj Pegu. Eleven of them are from the BJP, while Keshab Mahanta is from the AGP.

With this expansion, the council will have 17 ministers from the BJP, two from the AGP and one from the BPF.

Among the new entrants is the Speaker of the last Legislative Assembly, senior Bodo leader Biswajit Daimary, who had joined the BJP in 2020 after quitting the BPF. First-time MLA Nilima Devi, who is the president of the Assam Pradesh BJP Mahila Morcha, will also be inducted and will be one of two women ministers, along with veteran Ajanta Neog, who was sworn in with Sarma. The two other new entrants are Ashwini Roy Sarkar, a Bengali Hindu leader from Western Assam, and Sushanta Borgohain, an Ahom leader from Eastern Assam who had joined the BJP in 2021, defecting from the Congress after being elected as a Congress MLA that year. He was elected as a BJP MLA in a by-election later that year.

Notably, none of the high-profile Congress leaders who joined the BJP shortly before the election, including Pradyot Bordoloi, who was a sitting Lok Sabha MP when he jumped ship from the Congress, have been accommodated in the ministry. A notable drop from the last ministry is BJP leader Chandra Mohan Patowary, who was its senior-most member.

The new ministry does not include any leaders from the hill regions of Karbi Anglong and Dima Hasao. Since Assam can have up to 19 ministers, there is room for two more ministers in future expansion.