Sikkim CM Chamling set to complete 20 years in office

Sikkim Chief Minister Pawan Chamling is set to complete 20 years in the office on December 12,2014.

He is also set to become the country's longest serving chief minister, breaking the record of late Communist leader Jyoti Basu who was chief minister of West Bengal for more than 23 years.

Chamling will create an Indian political history record of being 25 years in the office should he complete his present term, his fifth. He has led his Sikkim Democratic Front party to a record mandate for the fifth time in a row in the assembly elections held in May this year.

Chamling has been chief minister of Sikkim since December 12, 1994 .

The ruling SDF has won 22 out of a total 32 seats on the plank of promoting peace, security and development. The party got majority 55 per cent vote share in multi corned contest in the state.

Chamling was born on 22 September 1950 in Yangang, South Sikkim to Ashbahadur Chamling and Asharani Chamling. Chamling is also a Nepali language writer and recipient of the Bhanu Puraskar (2010) awarded by Sikkim Sahitya Parishad. He writes under the pen name Pawan Chamling Kiran.

He was elected as the president of Yangang Gram Panchayat in 1982. In 1985, he was elected to the Sikkim Legislative Assembly for the first time. After being elected for the second time from Damthang constituency, he became the Minister for Industries, Information and Public Relations from 1989 to 1992 in the Nar Bahadur Bhandari cabinet.

After a series of major political upheavals in Sikkim, Chamling formed the Sikkim Democratic Front on March 4, 1993. The Sikkim Democratic Front won the 1994, 1999, 2004 and 2009 State Assembly elections under his leadership on the plank of peace prosperity and development .

He has launched several flagship programmes for making Sikkim a model state in the country. This included making the state totally organic by bringing 58168 hectares of land under organic cultivation. Its success has been lauded by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Parliament .

Chamling has also launched the Chief Minister's Rural Housing Mission to make Sikkim the first Kutcha House-Free State in the country by 2013. So far, 6000 Pakka houses for poor Sikkimese families have been constructed. The objective of the mission is to provide permanent and a safe roof over every family in Sikkim.

Chamling is also keen to ensure that Sikkim attains the highest standard of health through the Chief Minister's Comprehensive Annual and Total Check Up for Healthy Sikkim (CATCH).

The Total Literacy Mission, launched under Chamling's dynamic leadership seeks to achieve 100 percent literacy in Sikkim by 2015. Sikkim reached an impressive literacy rate of 82.6 percent in 2011 from a mere 56 percent in 1994. By 2015, Sikkim will be the second fully literate state in the country.