Assam Cabinet expansion: 12 ministers to be sworn in today
The Assam Cabinet will be expanded on Friday with the induction of 12 ministers, including three new faces, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said.
The strength of the Assam Cabinet will now be 17, including the chief minister, as four other ministers had been sworn in earlier on May 12.
The maximum allowed strength of the Council of Ministers is 19. Thus, two positions would be left vacant for now.
The new faces are Ashwini Ray Sarkar, Nilima Devi and Sushanta Borgohain, and they all belong to the BJP.
AGP’s Keshab Mahanta, also a minister in the previous NDA ministry, has also been included in the ministerial list. Biswajit Daimary, the Speaker of the previous Assembly, is also on the list of new ministers.
The remaining ones were all ministers in Sarma’s first Cabinet, and they are BJP leaders.
They are Ashok Singhal, Ranoj Pegu, Bimal Borah, Jayant Mallabaruah, Kaushik Rai, Krishnendu Paul and Pijush Hazarika.
‘’I am pleased to announce that the following Hon’ble Members of the Assam Legislative Assembly will be sworn in as Cabinet Ministers in the Government of Assam on 5 June 2026 at 12:45 PM,’’ the CM said in a social media post.
The ministers sworn in earlier are AGP’s Atul Bora, BPF’s Charan Boro and BJP’s Ajanta Neog and Rameshwar Teli.
The new Cabinet will have 13 BJP ministers, two from the AGP and one from the BPF.
Neog and Nilima Devi will be the two women ministers in the cabinet, and their numbers remain the same as in the previous one.
The expanded ministry will have representation from several ethnic communities and geographical regions.
There will be two representatives from the Barak Valley (Kaushik Rai and Krishnendu Paul), two from the Bodo community (BPF’s Boro and BJP’s Daimary).
Besides, Pegu is from the Mising tribe, Ray Sarkar from the Koch Rajbongshi and Borgohain from the Ahom community.
Borgohain, along with Borah, is from Upper Assam, Singhal from Northern, Pijush Hazarika from Central and Mallabaruah from Lower Assam. Sarma was sworn in as Chief Minister along with four ministers on May 12.
The NDA won a record 102 seats of the 126-member assembly, including 82 from the BJP.
The BJP allies, the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) and the Bodoland Peoples’ Front (BPF), bagged 10 seats each.
