GUWAHATI, Jan 17 � Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi will ask his Ministers to resign from their posts at the meeting of the Council of Ministers scheduled for 5 pm on January 19 to facilitate reshuffle of his ministry.
Disclosing this, sources close to the Chief Minister told this newspaper here today that Gogoi is likely to go for formation of his new ministry on January 20, subject to the availability of the Governor in the State capital.
Sources also said the list of probable Cabinet Ministers in the reshuffle includes the names of Chandan Sarkar, Sukur Ali, Dr Bhumidhar Barman, Girindra Mallik, Ajit Singh, Etowa Munda, Bismita Gogoi, Ajanta Neog, Rockybul Hussain, Sumitra Patir, Sarat Barkotoky, Dr Nazrul Islam and Basanta Das. Four posts in the ministry will remain vacant, sources said.
The ministers who are facing the axe include Pradyut Bordoloi, (now holding Power, Industries and Commerce and Education portfolios), Nilamani Sen Deka (holding the Agriculture and Parliamentary Affairs portfolios), Gautam Roy (Public Health Engineering portfolio), Tanka Bahadur Rai (Planning and Development), Prithivi Majhi (Labour and Employment), Pranati Phukan (Cultural Affairs, Handloom and Sericulture), Akon Bora (Social Welfare) and Rajiv Lochan Pegu (Minister of State, Independent Charge for Water Resources), sources said.
Garnering less votes for the party candidates in their respective areas in the last Parliamentary elections is cited as the reason for dropping these ministers from the Cabinet, sources said.
However, some of the new faces being inducted into the Cabinet like Chandan Sarkar, Sumitra Patir, Sukur Ali and Etowa Munda are of the status of Ministers of State in the present ministry and they also failed to attract adequate votes for the party candidates in their respective areas in the last Parliamentary elections, sources said.
Moreover, sources said Sarat Barkotoky was holding the post of Deputy Chairman of the State Planning Board, which was equivalent to that of a Cabinet Minister of the State and he also failed to gather more votes for the party candidate in his area in the Parliamentary elections.
Significantly, there was no hint prior to the Parliamentary elections that Cabinet Ministers would be dropped in case they failed to attract more votes in favour of the party candidates in their respective areas, sources said.
