Kolkata, May 9: Suvendu Adhikari on Saturday took oath as the Chief Minister of the first BJP-ruled West Bengal government, along with four other members of the state Council of Ministers led by him. The other five members of the state Council of Ministers who were sworn in on Saturday include the former national vice-president and former state president of the BJP in West Bengal, Dilip Ghosh, fashion-designer-turned politician and two-time BJP legislator, Agnimitra Paul, former BJP Lok Sabha member and the former Union Minister of state for Home, Nisith Pramanik, Ashok Kirtania and Khudiram Tudu.
Ghosh was the second person after Adhikari to take oath, followed by Paul, Kritania, Tudu and Pramanik However, at the time the report was filed, the portfolios of the five other members of the state’s Council of Ministers were not announced. While Kirtania represents the Matua community, Tudu represents the tribal community.
In the recently concluded Assembly elections in West Bengal, the BJP candidates virtually swept almost all the Assembly constituencies where Matua and tribal voters were in majority. While Ghosh represents the other backward class (OBC) community, Paul hails from Kayastha background. Pramanik is the representative of the Rajbanshi community, a predominant sect of people in North Bengal, where the BJP this time had almost demolished Trinamool Congress in the recently concluded Assembly polls.
Adhikari himself is a Brahmin. Political observers feel that selection of the first six ministers from different caste-backgrounds is a subtle signal sent by the BJP that the new state government will consider people from all caste-backgrounds with equality without any bias towards anybody. To recall, whenever Union Home Minister, Amit Shah went to Bengal for election campaigns, he was asked who the Chief Minister of the first BJP-ruled government in West Bengal would be.
Instead of directly naming anyone, Shah always said that the new Chief Minister will be a “son of the soil, a Bengali and one who had pursued his academic career in Bengali medium.” So Adhikari rightly suits all the criteria that were outlined by Shah before the elections. Meanwhile, the Trinamool Congress, as the principal Opposition party in the House this time, is yet to announce the name of the Leader of the Opposition, the chair held by Adhikari from 2021 to 2026.
IANS
