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Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma assigns portfolios to ministers in new NDA cabinet
Sarma has not yet indicated which departments he will retain. As per convention, all departments not allocated to any minister remain under the chief minister’s charge.
Two days after taking oath for a second consecutive term, Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Thursday allocated portfolios to the four ministers who were sworn in along with him in the new cabinet.
The allocation was announced through a note issued by Governor Lakshman Prasad Acharya. “I am in receipt of your letter...proposing the allotment of portfolios to the members of the council of ministers... I approve the proposal as suggested by you,” the note stated.
Former Union minister Rameshwar Teli, the new entrant in the cabinet who belongs to the tea-tribe community, has been assigned the departments of transformation and development, labour welfare, and tea-tribes and Adivasi welfare.
Ajanta Neog, the only woman minister in the present cabinet, has been given charge of the tourism and women and child development departments. In the previous government, Neog had also handled the finance portfolio besides women and child development.
Alliance partner Asom Gana Parishad president Atul Bora has been allotted the departments of panchayat and rural development, implementation of Assam Accord, border protection and development, and excise.
In the previous government, Bora had handled the agriculture and horticulture, border protection and development, and implementation of Assam Accord departments.
Sarma has not yet indicated which departments he will retain. As per convention, all departments not allocated to any minister remain under the chief minister’s charge.
Charan Boro of the Bodoland Peoples’ Front has been assigned the transport and welfare of Bodoland region departments — both portfolios he also held in the previous cabinet.
Sarma had earlier announced that Ranjeet Kumar Dass, who handled panchayat and rural development and tourism in the previous cabinet, would be the new Speaker of the Assam Assembly.
On Wednesday, the chief minister had said that the expansion of the cabinet would take place around the first week of June after the conclusion of the first session of the newly elected Assembly.
