KOLKATA, June 1: BJP MLAs Swapan Dasgupta, Tapas Roy and Shankar Ghosh were among the 35 legislators who took oath as ministers on Monday as West Bengal CM Suvendu Adhikari expanded his cabinet, taking the total strength of the council of ministers to 41.
A carefully-crafted balance, based on geographical, ethnic and gender considerations, characterised the expanded council of ministers of the first BJP-helmed government in the state.Governor RN Ravi administered the oath of office to the legislators at a programme held at Lok Bhavan here in the presence of Adhikari, the existing ministers of his cabinet and senior bureaucrats of the state administration.
While 13 BJP MLAs were sworn in as cabinet ministers, three took oath as ministers of state (Independent Charge) and 19 others were inducted in the council as ministers of state.
With five cabinet ministers, besides Adhikari, having already taken oath on May 9, the total strength of the state’s council of ministers stood at three short of the Constitution-mandated optimal count of 44 in the 294-member state assembly.
The inductees also represented the cross-section of Bengal’s society — with doctors, academics, journalists, and even those who worked in blue-collar jobs, such as house helps, before getting into politics, being offered berths in Adhikari’s council. Compared to the erstwhile TMC ministry during its third term in power, where eight of the 43 ministers were from north Bengal, the overall picture of the Adhikari council looked like a minor improvement in terms of representation from the region.
Three BJP MLAs, representing the ST community, and six others from the SC group, were additionally awarded space as ministers of state, taking the total count of ministers representing backward castes to 15, nearly 37% of the state’s ministers. (PTI)
