Agencies
NEW DELHI, MAY 21
[dropcap]A[/dropcap]ssam chief minister Tarun Gogoi will resign from his post on Thursday (22 May, 2014).
Gogoi, earlier, had attributed a bit of “arrogance and complacency” within himself and the Congress for the party’s poor show in the the Lok Sabha elections in Assam.
Gogoi arrived in New Delhi on Tuesday to offer his resignation to Congress president Sonia Gandhi and seek her directives on his future role.
Gogoi’s decision comes after dissidents once again called for change of leadership following the party’s debacle in the Lok Sabha polls. The Congress won just three Lok Sabha seats in Assam.
A group of rebel ministers and legislators have carried out a signature campaign for the leadership change. Pro-Gogoi ministers have countered this by asking the chief minister to form a new cabinet.“We have proposed to the chief minister to call for resignation of all ministers so that he gets a freehand to form a new cabinet. I have also talked to few ministers and we are all ready to submit our papers,” forest minister Rockybul Hussain said. Agriculture minister Nilamani Sen Deka told TOI he is ready to resign if the chief minister calls for a collective resignation of all ministers.
On Monday, pro-Gogoi legislators met the chief minister and pressed for new faces in the cabinet, who can deliver before the 2016 assembly elections. The group asked Gogoi to form the new cabinet within 15 days.
Significantly, the pro-Gogoi group wants the chief minister to call off the alliance with Bodo People’s Front after several organizations and people alleged it had instigated recent killings of Bengali-speaking Muslims.
