Mamata Banerjee oath taking ceremony: Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee took oath as the Chief Minister of West Bengal for the second term on Friday.
1.06pm: Mamata Banerjee’s oath taking ceremony concludes. All ministers have taken their oath.
12.56pm: Ministers of Mamata’s cabinet take oath in groups
12.45pm: MLAs take their respective oath before the Governor of West Bengal
12.42pm: Mamata Banejee takes oath as the Chief Minister of West Bengal for her second consecutive term.
12.25pm: TMC Supremo Mamata Banerjee arrives at the venue.
Kolkata: TMC MLAs take oath as ministers in West Bengal Govt pic.twitter.com/FZwvLtiQTt
— ANI (@ANI_news) May 27, 2016
Mamata Banerjee met Governor Kesari Nath Tripathi on Thursday to submit the list of 42 MLAs who will take oath with her at Red Road, Kolkata at 12.45pm. Former Indian cricketer Laxmi Ratan Shukla, Kolkata Mayor Shovan Chatterjee, and singer Indranil Sen are among the 17 new faces in Didi’s 42-member ministry.
The other new entrants in the state cabinet include former Indian Abani Mohan Joarder, Abdur Rezzak Mollah, Suvendu Adhikari, Rabindranath Ghosh, Churamani Mahato, James Kujur, Siddikullah Choudhury, Asima Patra, Ghulam Rabbani, Zakir Hossain, Sandhya Rani Tudu, Tapan Dasgupta and B Hansda.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley is expected to attend the swearing-in ceremony. The guest list also includes Amitabh Bachchan, Shah Rukh Khan, Bihar CM Nitish Kumar, Lalu Prasad Yadav, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Akhilesh Yadav.
Rise & Shine. Some day I will tell my grandchildren I was there at Red Road #Kolkata on 27 May 2016 #DidiTakesOath
— Derek O’Brien (@quizderek) May 27, 2016
Announcing that the swearing-in-ceremony was dedicated to ‘Ma, Mati, Manush (mother, land and people)’, TMC supremo said 19,000 chairs would be kept for the ordinary people, who can occupy them on first-come, first-served basis. The state government has also made arrangements for giant screens to be installed on roads. At least 30 giant ACs are expected to keep the VVIP sitting area cool, while pedestal fans will be placed for the common people.
“Apart from the seats allotted to the card-holders, seating arrangement has been done for the general people who are willing to attend the programme. They don’t need any cards to attend the programme as we have dedicated this swearing-in ceremony for the common people,” Banerjee said
Trinamool Congress on May 19 put up a stunning victory in West Bengal Assembly Elections 2016 by winning 211 seats out of a total of 294. An analysis of the results indicated that the party’s vote percentage also increased compared to 2011 Assembly poll and 2014 Lok Sabha elections. During the last Assembly polls, which led to the fall of the 34-year-old rule of the Left Front government, Trinamool had won 184 seats in alliance with Congress.
It was for the first time in 49 years that Trinamool Congress without any alliance has come to power in the state.
“The alliance of Congress and Left Front is an open book while Modi-Didi (Narendra Modi and Mamata Banerjee) are having a tacit understanding. In Bengal, the political equation has changed,” said West Bengal Congress president Adhir Chowdhury while addressing Left workers at a protest rally at Kolkata on Thursday.
The opposition in the state – the Left Front, Congress and the BJP – will boycott the function in lieu of alleged violence perpetrated on them by the Trinamool.
