GUWAHATI, June 27 – State Ministers continued to tender their resignations to Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi for the second day today to enable him to downsize the Ministry, and so far 25 Ministers have tendered their resignations. The Ministers took a decision during an informal meeting on June 25 that all of them would resign en masse to enable the Chief Minister to downsize his Ministry and the Ministers started tendering their resignations one by one since yesterday.
Since this morning, State Ministers visited the residence of the Chief Minister one by one to submit their resignation letters. Official sources said that the Ministers, who tendered their resignations today include the Social Welfare Minister Gautam Roy, Education Minister Pankaj Bora, Urban Development Minister Hem Prakash Narayan, Food and Civil Supply Minister Dr Nazrul Islam, Agriculture Minister Dr Ardhendu Kumar Dey, Hill Areas Development Minister GC Langthasa, Minister of State for Sports Capt Robin Bardoloi, Minister of State for Cultural Affairs Pranati Phukan, Minister of State for Social Welfare Sarifa Begum, Minister of State for Welfare of Plain Tribes and Backward Classes Pranoy Rabha and the Minister of State for Tourism Ajanta Neog.
The Gogoi Ministry has 35 members and nine of them including senior Ministers like Devananda Konwar and Bhubaneswar Kalita are yet to submit their resignation letters. However, official sources said that all the Ministers are expected to tender their resignations before the Chief Minister leaves for New Delhi tomorrow.
The Chief Minister will go to New Delhi tomorrow and he is meeting the Congress president Sonia Gandhi tomorrow evening to discuss the issue. During his stay in Delhi, the Chief Minister is also scheduled to meet the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh and other senior Congress leaders to finalise the list for the new downsized Ministry.
It may be mentioned here that the issue of downsizing the Ministry has been hogging the limelight in the political circles of Assam for the last one month or so as no one is quite sure who will get a berth in the new Ministry. The Chief Minister has announced that efforts would be made to ensure proper representation of all the communities in the new Ministry, but he has not yet clearly stated as to who would get a berth in the Ministry, which created uncertainty in the minds of the Ministers, some of whom have virtually stopped attending their offices, which, in turn, affected the functioning of the Government. A number of Ministers have also frequently visited New Delhi for lobbying to get berths in the downsized Ministry. The Chief Minister will have to cut down the number of Ministers to 19 by July 7 and he announced that he would do so in the first week of July.