Himanta Biswa Sarma will take over as Chief Minister of Assam from Sarbananda Sonowal. Mr Sonowal proposed Mr Sarma’s name at today’s legislature party meeting in Guwahati, after Prime Minister Narendra Modi approved Mr Sarma’s elevation, and it was seconded by the MLAs.
In the recently concluded assembly elections in the state, the BJP won a second consecutive term. The party received 60 seats in the 126-member Assam assembly, while its alliance partners AGP and UPPL received nine and six seats, respectively.
Mr Sonowal was projected as the BJP’s chief ministerial candidate in the 2016 Assembly elections, and he won, forming the party’s first government in the northeast. This time, the party insisted on deciding who would be the next chief minister after the elections.
After the meeting, Mr. Sarna tweeted:
Mr Sarma, who joined the BJP from the Congress six years ago, is credited with bringing the northeast states under the party’s control. In the Sarbananda Sonowal government, he was also in charge of the health portfolio.
Himanta Biswa Sarma resigned from Tarun Gogoi’s Congress government in 2015. He then joined the BJP, where he quickly rose to the position of chief strategist for the northeast.
The following year, the BJP won a landslide victory in Assam assembly elections, deposing the Tarun Gogoi government, which had ruled the state for three terms in a row.
Sarbananda Sonowal, the sports minister in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, was appointed Chief Minister, and Mr Sarma was appointed Chief Convener of the North-East Democratic Alliance (NEDA), a BJP-led coalition of anti-Congress parties.
Despite winning fewer seats than the Congress, the BJP formed government in Manipur the following year.
