Mukul Sangma takes oath as Meghalaya CM
By Hemanta Kumar Nath, Shillong, Mar 5 : Mukul Sangma on Tuesday sworn in as the Chief Minister of Meghalaya for the second time in a row.
47-year-old Sangma was administered the oath of office and secrecy by Governor Ranjit Sekhar Mushahary at the Raj Bhawan in Shillong during the oath-taking ceremony.
Sangma-led Congress had won 29 seats in the 60 members Meghalaya legislative assembly, two short of a majority.
He became the 23rd Chief Minister of the state.
"We will focus on development in Meghalaya and it is our sincere commitment to the people of Meghalaya," Sangma said after the swearing-in ceremony.
"Backwardness and poverty in the state are the main issues for the new government and we will look into these issues," Sangma said.
Apart from 29 Congress MLAs, eight Independent MLAs had given unconditional support to the new government.
Mukul Sangma, a practising physician joined active politics in 1993 and was elected to the Meghalaya assembly as an Independent candidate from Ampatigiri constituency.
Sangma was re-elected to the assembly from the same constituency as Congress candidate in 1998, 2003 and 2008.
In 2003, he became the home and education minister in the DD Lapang-led ministry.
In 2005, Sangma was appointed as the Deputy Chief Minister, but he was forced to resign from the post on October 7, 2005 as five people were killed in police firing incident at Williamnagar and four others were killed at Tura on September 30 that the year during agitation against the restructuring of Meghalaya Board of Secondary Education recommended by a state-level committee, which was constituted by the state government.
Sangma again became the Deputy Chief Minister in the DD Lapang ministry in 2009.
When Chief Minister DD Lapang resigned on April 19, 2010, Sangma took the charge and became the 22nd Chief Minister of Meghalaya.
A graduate in medicine from the Regional Institute of Medical sciences (RIMS) in Imphal, Sangma was born at Chengkompara village on April 20, 1965.