Kolkata: Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee was on Friday sworn in as West Bengal Chief Minister for the second time.
Banerjee was administered the oath of office and secrecy by Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi at 12:45pm before a galaxy of political leaders and thousands of common people on a makeshift dais at the Indira Gandhi Sarani (Red Road) here.
Banerjee, the state's eighth Chief Minister and the first woman to occupy the post, took her oath in Bengali.
Besides Mamata, 41 party MLAs also took oath as the ministers in the new Cabinet. After the event, all 42 ministers will go to state's main administrative building Nabanna to hold newly elected government's first Cabinet meeting, which is scheduled to be held at 4:30 pm.
Among the 41 MLAs, 18 faces are new. Three of the ministers are women, seven belong to the Muslim community.
Amit Mitra, Partha Chatterjee, Subrata Mukherjee, Sovandeb Chattopadhyay and Abanimohan Joardar were among the first group of ministers to be administered the oath of office and secrecy by the governor. The other ministers were sworn-in later in batches.
Among those who graced the occasion were Bhutan Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay, Bangladesh Industry Minister Amir Hossain Amu, union ministers Arun Jaitley and Babul Supriyo, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav and Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad.
Thousands of supporters braving the intense heat assembled under the open sky to watch Didi (in Bengali elder sister, as Banerjee is fondly called) take oath, as she begins her second innings at the helm of the eastern state.
TMC put up a stunning victory in West Bengal winning 211 of the 294 seats. The Congress-Left combine got 76 seats. TMC had secured 184 seats in 2011 Assembly election when it had fought in alliance with Congress.
Banerjee first took over as chief minister on May 20, 2011, when she led an alliance of the Trinamool Congress, Congress and Socialist Unity Centre of India-Communist to a huge win in the state assembly polls, bringing to an end 34 years of uninterrupted Left Front rule.
