Kolkata: A host of ministers from Mamata Banerjee's Cabinet received Governor Designate Jagdeep Dhankhar along with wife Sudesh Dhankhar, First lady designate, at the Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport on Monday.
The ministers — Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay (Power), Purnendu Basu (Skill Development and Training), Chandrima Bhattacharya (Health), Bratya Basu (Forest) presented flower bouquets to the Governor Designate and his wife.
Chief Secretary Malay De, Director General of Police Virendra and Dinesh Trivedi, former MP and a longtime friend of the Governor Designate were also present. He was given Guard of Honour at the airport by the state police.
From the airport, he went to the Raj Bhavan, entering the premises through the North Gate. Satish Chandra Tewary, additional Chief Secretary to the Governor accompanied by D K Gautam, Special Security Group (SSG), Manab Bandyopadhyay, Press Secretary to the Governor, Kumarjib Chakraborty, Special Secretary to the Governor, Sujay Sikdar, OSD to the Governor, received the Governor Designate and the First Lady Designate. Standing on the grand staircase of the North facade, the Governor Designate took the Kolkata Police's Guard of Honour.
The Governor Designate met the officers and the staff members and took a tour of a part of the Raj Bhavan. He will take oath as the Governor of West Bengal on Tuesday at 12.30 pm.
Chief Justice of High Court TBN Radhakrishnan will conduct the Oath of secrecy. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and her Council of Ministers, senior state government officials, important industrialists, Consul Generals, Vice-Chancellors of different universities, leaders of all political parties will be present at the oath-taking ceremony.
The Governor Designate, a senior advocate of the Supreme Court, was a Congress MP from 1989 to 1991 and was a Central minister in the VP Singh government. Earlier, he was an MLA from Kishangarh, Rajasthan. In 2003, he quit Congress and joined the BJP.