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Kolkata
Kolkata Mayor Sovan Chatterjee, former Indian cricketer Laxmi Ratan Shukla, retired IPS officers Abani Joardar and James Kujur and singer Indranil Sen will be among the new faces in West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's new council of ministers to be sworn in on Friday.
The strength of the ministry would be 42, including the chief minister, Banerjee announced on Thursday, after submitting the list to Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi at the Raj Bhavan.
The fresh entrants in the ministry include former Marxist-turned-Trinamool Congress lawmaker Abdur Rezzak Mollah, Suvendu Adhikary, Sovandeb Chattopadhyay, Churamoni Mahato, Tapan Dasgupta, Siddiqullah Chowdhury and Asima Patra. Gulam Rabbani, Bachchu Hansda, Jakir Hossain, Sandhyarani Tudu and Rabindranath Ghosh are the other new inductions in Banerjee's second ministry.
The heavyweight ministers in Banerjee's first cabinet formed five years ago - Amit Mitra, Partha Chatterjee, Subrata Mukherjee, Firhad Hakim, Aroop Biswas, Jyotipriyo Mullick, Purnendu Bose, Bratya Basu, Gautam Deb - have also retained berths in the new cabinet.
Meanwhile, alleging post-poll violence in the east Indian state of West Bengal, the state BJP on Thursday said it would boycott the swearing-in ceremony, even as some Union ministers, including Arun Jaitley, would attend the programme.
"We are boycotting tomorrow's swearing-in ceremony. When our workers are being attacked throughout the state, how can we join the swearing-in ceremony?" state BJP president Dilip Ghosh said.
State BJP sources, however, confirmed the participation of Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and said a few other Central ministers would also be in attendance.
Both the Congress and the Left Front, which fought the Assembly poll together, have decided against participating in the ceremony and said they would organise protests against post-poll violence.
