West Bengal cabinet undergoes expansion, 35 MLAs take oath as ministers

35 MLAs took oath as ministers on Monday as part of cabinet expansion in West Bengal, taking the total strength of Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari's council of ministers to 41.

Governor RN Ravi administered oath to the MLAs as ministers in the state's first BJP-helmed cabinet at Lok Bhavan.

While 13 BJP MLAs were sworn in as cabinet ministers, three were administered oath as ministers of state (Independent Charge) and 19 others were inducted in the council as ministers of state.

The ceremony took place in the presence of Adhikari, the existing ministers of his cabinet and senior bureaucrats of the state administration.

Newly-elected BJP MLAs Swapan Dasgupta, Shankar Ghosh, Arjun Singh, Tapas Roy, Saradwat Mukherjee and Jagannath Chattopadhyay were among those who took oath as cabinet ministers.

Party MLAs Dudh Kumar Mondal, Deepak Burman, Manoj Oraon and Gouri Shankar Ghosh were also sworn in as cabinet ministers.

BJP legislators Rajesh Mahata, Indranil Khan and Malati Rava Roy were sworn in as ministers of state (Independent Charge) in the Suvendu Adhikari government.

Among the ministers of state who were administered the oath were Joyel Murmu, Ashok Dinda, Anandamoy Burman, Kaushik Chowdhury, Gargi Das Ghosh, Bhaskar Bhattacharya, Dibakar Gharami and Sumana Sarkar.

BJP MLAs Santanu Pramanik, Purnima Chakraborty and Umesh Rai were also sworn in as ministers of state.

The current strength of ministers is now 41, three short of the maximum count that a government can have in the 294-member assembly.

The oath-taking ceremony was held three weeks after Adhikari was sworn in as the chief minister on May 9 in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, the BJP's central leadership and CMs of NDA-ruled states.

Along with Adhikari, BJP legislators Dilip Ghosh, Agnimitra Paul, Nisith Pramanik, Ashok Kirtania and Kshudiram Tudu also took oath as ministers on that day.

The cabinet expansion was expected this week as Adhikari and state BJP chief Samik Bhattacharya held meetings in New Delhi with the party's central leadership last week about the induction of members in the council of ministers.

The May 9 swearing-in ceremony was held at the iconic Brigade Parade Grounds after the BJP secured 208 seats in the 294-member assembly in the recently concluded elections, ending the Trinamool Congress' 15-year rule and scripting its most significant electoral breakthrough in eastern India.

(With PTI inputs)