Cabinet Oath Taking: Mamata's Delegation To See A Mix Of Old And New Faces

Eight women ministers will also be sworn in, with Sashi Panja the only one to get a cabinet rank. Among the eight women ministers, three are from Scheduled Tribe communities.

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Kolkata: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee will be joined by 43 different officials in her cabinet as they take their oath today. Some old and some new members will be a part of her team as continues on for a third term.

The cabinet has 25 incumbent names and 18 new ones. Out of 43, nine will be ministers of state.

The oath taking ceremony will take place at Raj Bhawan at 10:45 am today. Amit Mitra and Bratya Basu will take their oaths virtually as Mitra, has not been keeping well and Bratya Bose who is recovering from Covid-19.

Earlier, TMC leader Biman Banerjee was elected as the Speaker of the West Bengal Legislative Assembly for the third consecutive time. 

Amit Mitra will be joined by Partha Chatterjee, Subrata Mukherjee, Madhyam Pandey, Jyotipriya Mallik, Bratya Basu, Bankim Chandra Hazra, Aroop Biswas, Malay Ghatak, Dr. Manas Bhuiyan, Somen Mahapatra, Ujjwal Vishwas, Arup Rai, Firhad Hakim, Rathin Ghosh, Dr. Shashi Panja , Chandranath Singh, Shobhandev Chattopadhyay, Pulak Rai, Ghulam Rabbani, Viplav Mitra, Javed Khan, Sapan Debnath and Siddikulla Chaudhary as cabinet ministers.

Veterans Subrata Mukherjee, Partha Chatterjee, Firhad Hakim, Aroop Biswas, Sujit Bose, Chandrima Bhattacharya and Shashi Panja are back as ministers. Manas Bhuian, who was Rajya Sabha MP and fought the Assembly poll this time, is in.

Akhil Giri, a known loyalist from East Midnapore, turncoat Suvendu Adhikari's district, and Arup Roy from Howrah, the district of yet another rebel leader Rajib Banerjee. 

The TMC supremo wants Amit Mitra back to head the finance department and has plans to make him a member of the Assembly through a by-election, the senior leader of the party said. 

Eight women ministers will also be sworn in, with Sashi Panja the only one to get a cabinet rank. Among the eight women ministers, three — Sandhyarani Tudu, Jyotsna Mandi and Birbaha Hansda — are from Scheduled Tribe communities. 

TMC won 213 seats and while 77 of them was won by BJP. TMC supremo herself took the oath of chief minister for the third time on May 5th.