Tarun Gogoi 3.0

Tarun Gogoi, who’s waiting to take over as CM for the third consecutive term, initiated the process of the new government formation by convening the last meeting of the outgoing cabinet on Saturday evening. Buoyed by the Congress’ emphatic win in the elections Gogoi heaped praise on the bureaucracy “for implementing the outgoing government’s welfare development policies that helped the Congress retain power”. An official of the chief minister’s office said that the new CM was likely to be sworn in on May 18. Gogoi is the only choice for the post but he prudently maintained that the decision would be taken by the AICC observer and the new Congress MLAs.A source close to the chief minister said after the cabinet meeting that the Congress legislature party would hold an informal meet on Sunday to elect the new leader, who would head the government as the chief minister. State legislative assembly secretary GP Das said that the 12th assembly was likely to be dissolved on Monday to pave way for the formation of the next assembly. “The chief minister has to advise the governor on dissolving the assembly. Following this, the assembly secretary has to notify it to the election department, which will then approve the formation of the new assembly,” he said. “This is the first time that we will not have a leader of the opposition as the house meets. The rules say that for an MLA to have the mandate of the entire opposition as its leader in the house, he should belong to the party that has at least one sixth of the total members of the assembly. Here in the 126-member assembly, the required number is 21. And no party other than Congress has that number. So every party will have their individual leader and deputy leader in the house,” Das said. On Saturday Gogoi expressed his gratitude to all senior officials, led by chief secretary NK Das, for extending their support to the outgoing government in the past five years.” By and large, you have all done a good job in reaching out to the people by implementing government policies and schemes. The people have appreciated the good work done by the government in the past five years and have once again reposed faith and confidence on us. Now it’s our turn to serve the people in a big way,” Gogoi said in his message to the bureaucracy.