Himanta Biswa Sarma, the chief minister of Assam, said “big changes” will occur after the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and prior to the 2026 state Assembly election, but he ruled out any ministry reorganisation on Saturday.
Amit Shah, the Union Home Minister, was briefed by Sarma on the flood situation in the northeastern state.
‘There will be no reshuffle (in the Assam cabinet) till the Lok Sabha polls. However, there will definitely be big changes after the Lok Sabha polls and before the (2026) Assembly election,’ he said here.
Sarma also ruled out the prospect of any changes to the Assam branch’s leadership of the governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
‘The state unit president of the BJP normally completes his tenure. A president has a fixed tenure. No change takes place halfway,’ he said.
Sarma responded that there is no opposition to the ongoing delineation of the Assembly and Lok Sabha constituencies in Assam, adding that some concerns have arisen regarding the redrawing and renaming of some of the constituencies and that all of this can be discussed during the upcoming visit of Election Commission (EC) officials to the state.
He claimed that in response to complaints for making essential changes, the state administration had provided the EC with a list of constituencies.
‘The issues that have surfaced following the draft delimitation will be 99 per cent resolved if they are placed before the EC,’ the chief minister said.
When asked about the flood-like conditions in Delhi, Sarma responded that urban flooding is a common occurrence in large cities, and Guwahati, the capital of Assam, is no different.
During his most recent visit to the state, the BJP leader made fun of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s remarks regarding the Assam floods.
‘Kejriwal said he would invite me for a tour of Delhi. I have been waiting for six months for his invite so that I can see what kind of development he has undertaken in the capital,’ he said.
Sarma briefed Shah about the flood situation in the state and the slew of relief and recovery steps his government had taken to address it during their meeting. According to a statement from the state government, the chief minister thanked the home minister for allocating Rs 340 crore as the central share of the State Disaster Response Fund for Assam.
Sarma also met with Bhupender Yadav, the Union Minister for Environment, Forests, and Climate Change, to ask for his assistance in obtaining one crore high-quality saplings for planting in Assam as part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s LiFE Mission.
Yadav gave Sarma his word that he would work to bring in Dehraduni professionals to aid the Assam government in its endeavours within the next two to three days.
On Friday evening, the chief minister met with Delhi Lieutenant Governor V K Saxena and asked for his assistance in locating a suitable site for the construction of a massive cultural complex in the nation’s capital.
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