Kolkata
Grand Swearing-In Ceremony Planned for Bengal CM-Elect
Suvendu Adhikari met Governor R. N. Ravi to stake claim to form the BJP’s first-ever government in the state after the party’s sweeping election victory.
Suvendu Adhikari on Friday evening met R. N. Ravi at Lok Bhavan and formally staked claim to form the first-ever Bharatiya Janata Party government in West Bengal.
The development came barely two hours after Adhikari was elected leader of the BJP legislature party at a meeting chaired by Union Home Minister Amit Shah.
Adhikari was accompanied by several senior BJP leaders, including Union ministers Bhupendra Yadav, Sukanta Majumdar and Santanu Thakur. Also present were Mohan Charan Majhi, BJP Bengal president Samik Bhattacharya and senior state leaders including Dilip Ghosh, Locket Chatterjee and Tapas Roy.
In the recently concluded assembly elections, the BJP secured a landslide victory by winning 207 seats in the 294-member assembly, reducing the All India Trinamool Congress to 80 seats and ending its 15-year rule in the state.
Adhikari and his council of ministers are scheduled to take oath at a grand ceremony at the Brigade Parade Ground on Saturday in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, senior Union ministers and chief ministers from BJP-ruled states.
With the swearing-in, Adhikari will become the ninth chief minister of West Bengal and the first in 55 years to lead the state government while coming from a district background rather than Kolkata.
The last chief minister from rural Bengal was Ajoy Mukherjee, who took office in 1971 and hailed from the undivided Medinipur region — the same region where Adhikari’s political roots lie.