Mamata Banerjee was today sworn in as the Chief Minister of West Bengal for the second consecutive time heading a 42-member ministry with the Congress- Left combine and the state BJP boycotting the ceremony.
Union ministers Arun Jaitley, Ashok Gajapathi and Babul Supriyo, however, attended the ceremony, besides Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, UP CM Akhilesh Yadav and his Delhi counterpart Arvind Kejriwal
Governor Keshri Nath Tripathi administered the oath of office and secrecy to 61-year-old Banerjee in Bengali at a function on the arterial Red Road here.
After leaving her Kalighat residence in south Kolkata, Banerjee, wearing her trademark white sari, walked some distance greeting people before boarding the car.
She single-handedly steered her party TMC to a spectacular victory winning 211 of the 294 seats in the Assembly defeating the Congress-Left combine and BJP.
A host of political leaders including RJD chief Lalu Prasad, National Conference leader Farooq Abdullah and DMK's Kanimozhi were present at the ceremony.
Leaders of Congress and the Left parties boycotted the swearing-in to protest against alleged post-poll violence by TMC.
State BJP leaders also stayed away from the ceremony alleging post-poll violence. Jaitley, however, said that the central ministers attended the programme in the spirit of democracy.
The 42-member TMC ministry has 29 Cabinet ministers, including the chief minister, five ministers of state with independent charge and eight ministers of state.
Prominent Cabinet ministers include Amit Mitra, Subrata Mukherjee, Partha Chatterjee, Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay, Firhad Hakim and Sovan Chatterjee, who is also the Mayor of Kolkata.
Women ministers include Sashi Panja, Asima Patra and Sandhyarani Tudu.
The new ministry has 18 new faces.
After taking oath, Banerjee left for 'Nabanna', the state secretariat where she was given a guard of honour by the police.
Flower petals were showered as she entered the secretariat. "I consider myself as a commoner. My life is dedicated for the cause of the people," she said.
(REOPENS CAL4)
The new council of ministers has representation from
all districts except Malda, caste, religion and creed.
Out of the 42 members, there are a few new faces. The rest are the same. All the three ministers in Hooghly district were changed this time.
The new faces in the state cabinet include former Indian cricketer Laxmi Ratan Shukla, Shovandeb Chattopadhyay, Kolkata Mayor Shovan Chatterjee, 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, singer Indranil Sen, Tapan Dasgupta and B Hansda.
Bangladesh Industry Minister, Bhutan Prime Minister and a host of several other national leaders and representatives of different industries were present in the ceremony.
Apart from the seats allotted to those holding invitation cards, seating arrangement was done for the general people, as the swearing-in ceremony was dedicated to the common people.
