guwahati the cotton university erstwhile cotton college fraternity was elated after receiving the news of their most popular student union leader from the late 1980s becoming the 15th chief minister of assamone of the breeding grounds of future politicians cotton college produced six former chief ministers of assam gopinath bordoloi mahendra mohan choudhury sarat chandra singha jogendra nath hazarika hiteswar saikia and bhumidhar barman in the postindependence era despite the cotton alumni playing an influential role across the political spectrum of the state all along a cottonian could not adorn the chief ministers chair in assam since 1996 as himanta biswa sarma is set to be sworn in as the new chief minister on monday both the alumni and students of the leading higher education institution have pinned high hopes from him which is far broader than transforming the education scenario of the state he himanta had a great zeal to work for students and society at his initiative cotton college was announced as a centre of excellence it was because of his efforts that cotton college got transformed into a university with sheer hard work he came a long way to become a political stalwart of the northeast and the new cm is our very own cm said jagadish dutta general secretary of cotton alumni association he was hopeful that under himantas leadership assam will become one of the top3 states of the countryhimanta drew severe criticism from the cottonians who took the lead in intensifying the protests against the citizenship amendment act caa when the legislation was passed in december 2019 however many said they trusted himantas faith in cotton university despite differences on a range of political issues besides being a frontline leader of the all assam students union aasu himanta was a threetime general secretary of cotton college union society ccus in 198889 198990 and 19911992incumbent general secretary of cotton university students union rahul bordoloi said on personal grounds they never attacked himanta he however said on sociopolitical issues such as caa cottonians will continue to remain firm on the stance we feel proud at himanta biswa sarmas elevation to the chief ministers post he is fond of his alma mater and we consider him as our guardian said bordoloi a border of the sitanath brahma choudhury hostel of the university where himanta spent a significant period of his student life the general students who could not come out to the streets to celebrate the occasion were equally jubilant after the end of the weeklong dilemma on the new cm of assam dr himanta biswa sarma a threetime general secretary of ccus paved his way from being a popular student leader to 15th chief minister of assam how does he address the issue of caa and also implementation of clause 6 of the assam accord is what we are looking for as of now we expect an eligible cabinet under his leadership that plans and works to tackle the pandemic that has affected our