Pawan Chamling to complete 20 years in office tomorrow

GANGTOK: Sikkim Chief Minister Pawan Chamling, who is serving his fifth consecutive term, will complete 20 years in office tomorrow.

64-year-old Chamling first assumed office on December 12 in 1994 when his Sikkim Democratic Front (SDF) won the Assembly elections.

He won a fifth consecutive time in the state Assembly elections held in May 2014.

Chamling is currently the longest serving Chief Minister in the country. He may break the 23-year-old record of Jyoti Basu, Chief Minister of West Bengal from June 21, 1977 to November 6, 2000, if he completes his present tenure in 2019.

During Chamling's tenure, the Sikkim government has started various flagship programmes for making the tiny hill state a model state in the country, an official release said.

Sikkim has become the leading state of producing organic fruits and vegetables with a total 58,168 hectare of land under organic cultivation.

Sikkim is also the greenest state in the country and according to latest data, 3,359 sq km of the state, or 47.3 per cent is under forest cover against the national average of 21 per cent, it added.