Mamata rides people’s wave for 2nd time

And what better way to reboot a state like Bengal than with a fresh vision and perception, now that she has been re-elected as the Chief Minister for the second time.

The Trinamool Congress supremo was sworn in as West Bengal’s Chief Minister for the second time on Friday. Forty-two others also took oath as her ministers. Banerjee and her ministers was administered the oath of office by Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi on a stage set up on the city’s prime thoroughfare — Red Road — at 12.45 pm, a time chosen by the ruling party chief herself.

Banerjee, the state’s eighth Chief Minister and the first woman to occupy the post, took her oath in Bengali. In 2011, Banerjee — Bengal’s first woman Chief Minister — was sworn in at the Raj Bhavan after she overthrew the 34-year-old Left Front regime from power. This time, breaking the convention, the ceremony was held on the historic Red Road, the most prestigious thoroughfare in the city with the common man watching the entire extravaganza. 

Giant screens were put up at important junctures surrounding the thoroughfare. Dedicating the success to Ma, Mati, Manush, Mamata Banerjee said it was because of their blessings that she along with her colleagues was back in power. “The government is of the people, by the people and for the people and it would continue to work for the masses,” she said. At Nabanna, the state’s administrative headquarters, she held the first Cabinet meeting and said financial benefits to the employees will be given.

Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and his colleague Babul Supriyo along with Chief Ministers of Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, namely, Arvind Kejriwal, Akhilesh Yadav and Nitish Kumar, RJD president Laloo Prasad and Farooq Abdullah were present on the occasion. Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi and Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated her as well.

Prime Minister of Bhutan Tshering Tobgay and the Industry minister of Bangladesh were present on the occasion. Two representatives of DMK and TDP also attended the function. Senior officials of the consulates and a host of businessmen including Sanjeev Goenka and Harshvardhan Neotia were also there at the event.

The 43 member Cabinet will have 30 ministers, five Ministers of State with independent charge and eight Ministers of State. Banerjee will retain home, land and land reforms, health and family welfare, information and cultural affairs and hill affairs while her colleagues, Amit Mitra, Subrata Mukherjee, Firhad Hakim, Rajib Banerjee and Sadhan Pandey will carry on with their old portfolios that include finance, panchayat and rural development and public health engineering, urban development and municipal affairs and irrigation and waterways and consumer affairs departments.

Suvendu Adhikari will look after the transport department while Mayor Sovan Chatterjee will look after fire and emergency services, environment and housing departments. Abdur Rezzak Mollah will be in-charge of food processing and horticulture department. Interestingly, Mollah used to look after these departments in Jyoti Basu’s Cabinet as well.

Sashi Panja will look after the social welfare and women development along with health as 

(MoS). Bratya Basu will look after IT department while Gautam Deb is the minister in charge for tourism department. Siddiqullah Chowdhury has become a Minister of State in charge of mass education and library. After the swearing-in ceremony, Banerjee was given guard of honour by Kolkata Police in front of Nabanna.

Vast areas surrounding Red Road was in festive mood with TMC workers coming from different districts to participate in the event. Swapan Ghosh, a TMC worker from Cooch Behar came to see the Chief Minister take oath.

Masuda bibi with 20 others had come from Sagar Island in South 24 Parganas. This was her second visit. “I saw didi when she came to Baruipur and thought of coming to the city to attend her oath-taking ceremony.”