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West Bengal set for major cabinet overhaul; 35 ministers to take oath today at Lok Bhawan
BJP leaders said some prominent MLAs are likely to be sworn in, including Shankar Ghosh, Swapan Dasgupta and Rupa Ganguly, Sharadwat Mukherjee.
West Bengal chief minister Suvendu Adhikari announced on Sunday that 35 more ministers will be sworn in by governor RN Ravi at the Lok Bhawan (formerly called Raj Bhawan) at 11am on Monday.
“West Bengal’s nationalist government elected by the people will have its full cabinet of ministers tomorrow,” Adhikari wrote in Bengali on X.
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders said some prominent MLAs are likely to be sworn in, including Shankar Ghosh, who was the party’s chief whip when it was in the opposition, oncologists Sharadwat Mukherjee and Indranil Khan, former TMC minister Tapas Roy, former Rajya Sabha members Swapan Dasgupta and Rupa Ganguly and former Lok Sabha member Arjun Singh.
Adhikari and five ministers took oath at Kolkata’s Brigade Parade Ground on May 9 in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, the chief ministers of all BJP-ruled states and eminent dignitaries.
Adhikari is in charge of the home and hill affairs department, previously held by former chief minister Mamata Banerjee.
“Banerjee headed several departments, including health. The BJP government will not follow that path. An efficient doctor will head the health department so it can be salvaged from the chaos of the TMC era,” a senior BJP state leader said, requesting anonymity.
Agnimitra Paul, the first woman inducted into the cabinet, heads the municipal affairs and urban development department, which current Kolkata Mayor Firhad Hakim previously managed. She is also in charge of the women and child development and social welfare department.
Former Bengal BJP state president Dilip Ghosh is in charge of the panchayat and rural development as well as the animal husbandry departments.
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Nisith Pramanik, a former Union minister of state for home affairs, is in charge of the north Bengal development as well as the sports and youth affairs.
Ashok Kirtania, a Dalit Matua community leader, is the food department minister.
Tribal community leader Kshudiram Tudu heads the backward classes welfare department and the minority affairs and Madrasah education department which was earlier under Mamata Banerjee.
In the two-phase elections, BJP won 207 of Bengal’s 294 seats against the TMC’s 80. Chief minister Mamata Banerjee was among 22 ministers who lost their seats.
