Himanta Biswa Sarma (born 1 February 1969) is an Indian politician of the Bharatiya Janata Party who has been Chief Minister of Assam since 10 May 2021 and was returned for a second term in 2026. A former student leader and for fourteen years a minister in the Congress government of Tarun Gogoi, he joined the BJP in 2015 and became the chief strategist of its expansion across the north-eastern states. He is among the most combative and closely watched chief ministers in the country.
Quick Facts
| Full name | Himanta Biswa Sarma |
| Born | 1 February 1969, Jorhat, Assam |
| Age | 57 |
| Education | Kamrup Academy, Guwahati; Cotton College (B.A., M.A. in political science); Government Law College, Guwahati (LL.B.); Gauhati University (Ph.D.) |
| Party | Bharatiya Janata Party (since 2015); earlier Indian National Congress |
| Offices | Chief Minister of Assam (since 2021); minister in Assam (2002–2014; 2016–2021); Convenor, North-East Democratic Alliance |
| Constituency | Jalukbari |
| Spouse | Riniki Bhuyan Sarma |
| Children | 2 |
Early Life
He was born at Jorhat and brought up in Guwahati, the son of Kailash Nath Sarma, a writer, and Mrinalini Devi. As a schoolboy he was drawn into the Assam agitation against illegal immigration and into the All Assam Students’ Union. At Cotton College he was general secretary of the students’ union three times.
He took a law degree and a doctorate and practised at the Gauhati High Court for five years.
Congress Years
He entered politics as a protégé of the Congress Chief Minister Hiteswar Saikia. In 2001 he won the Jalukbari seat in Guwahati, defeating a prominent leader of the regional party, and has held it ever since.
Under Tarun Gogoi he was a minister from 2002, holding at different times finance, health, education, planning and agriculture. He was regarded as the government’s ablest administrator and its chief election manager: new medical colleges, the recruitment of teachers by examination, and a health insurance scheme date from this period.
By 2014 he believed that he, not the Chief Minister’s son, should be the successor. He resigned from the cabinet, and after a year of open dissidence left the party.
The BJP
He joined the BJP on 23 August 2015. In the election of 2016 the party and its allies won Assam for the first time, and he became the most powerful minister in the government of Sarbananda Sonowal, with finance, health and education.
As convenor of the North-East Democratic Alliance he brought regional parties and defecting legislators to the BJP’s side in one state after another: Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Tripura, Meghalaya and Nagaland.
Chief Minister
After the alliance won again in 2021 the party chose him over Sonowal. He was sworn in on 10 May 2021.
- **Welfare:** a monthly cash transfer to women of poor households, and the forgiveness of small loans taken by women
- **Recruitment:** large examinations to fill government posts
- **Borders:** agreements with Meghalaya in 2022 and Arunachal Pradesh in 2023 on long-disputed boundaries
- **Peace:** accords with several militant groups, and the withdrawal of the special powers law from most of the state
- **Drugs and crime:** a police campaign in which a number of suspects were shot, which rights groups and the High Court questioned
- **Child marriage:** a crackdown in 2023 in which several thousand men were arrested
- **Madrasas:** state-run madrasas were converted into ordinary schools
- **Evictions:** the clearing of settlers from government and forest land, mostly Muslims of Bengali origin, in which there were deaths
- **Marriage law:** the repeal of the state’s Muslim marriage registration law and a new law against polygamy
His government was re-elected in April 2026 with a larger majority for the BJP on its own, and he began a second term.
Controversies
His language about Bengali-origin Muslims, whom he calls by a term many consider derogatory, has been condemned by the opposition and by civil rights groups as divisive. Opponents have also raised allegations about land and business dealings of his family, and about old cases from his years in the Congress. He rejects them all.
Other Roles
He has been president of the Badminton Association of India since 2017 and has headed cricket and other sports bodies in Assam.
Personal Life
He is married to Riniki Bhuyan Sarma, who runs a media company; they have a son and a daughter. He is a tireless campaigner, active on social media at all hours, and is in demand as a speaker for his party in elections far from Assam.
Featured image: Himanta Biswa Sarma, Chief Minister of Assam, in June 2026. Photo by the President’s Secretariat, licensed under Government Open Data License – India, via Wikimedia Commons.
