Guwahati: Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi is awaiting the final approval of Congress president Sonia Gandhi for carrying out the much awaited reshuffle of his ministry.
Gogoi on Tuesday met the Congress president in New Delhi in this regard and the reshuffle of the ministry is likely within first week of
November.
Gogoi informed that he had submitted the list of new ministers to the Congress president for approval and the regij the ministry would be carried out once it was approved by the party high command.
There are four vacancies in the 18-member ministry led by Tarun Gogoi – dissident Congress leader Dr Himanta Bishwa Sarma had quit few months back demanding removal of Gogoi as the CM, two other dissident ministers, Dr Ardhendu Dey and Siddique Ahmed were dropped by Gogoi while another minister Chandan
Brahma had quit after his party Bodoland People’s Front (BPF) snapped ties with ally Congress.
In addition to filling these vacant ministerial positions, Gogoi is under pressure to remove a few of
the ministers who have miserably failed to deliver over the years and were facing allegations of corruption and nepotism.
Moreover, there have been demands within the Congress legislature party to induct new faces in the ministry given that many of the incumbent ministers have been retained by Gogoi since 2001 without giving opportunity to other party MLAs to become ministers which has created resentment within a section the party MLAs and is one of the reasons for brewing dissension within the party.
Gogoi is expected to neutralize some of the dissident MLAs through the reshuffle of his ministry so that the dissident group becomes weaker before the 2016 Assembly election when Congress is facing a
stiff challenge from resurgent BJP unlike previous Assembly polls it had fought against weak opposition parties.