Bengal: 35 BJP MLAs sworn in as ministers in first expansion of Suvendu Adhikari’s government

West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari on Monday carried out the first expansion of his Cabinet, with 35 BJP MLAs taking oath as ministers three weeks after the party formed its first government in the state, The Telegraph reported.

Governor RN Ravi administered the oath at Lok Bhavan in Kolkata.

The expansion takes the strength of the Council of Ministers from six to 41, three short of the maximum permitted in the 294-member Assembly.

Of the 35 inductees, 13 were sworn in as Cabinet ministers, three as ministers of state with independent charge and 19 as ministers of state.

Among those inducted as Cabinet ministers are former Trinamool Congress leaders Arjun Singh and Tapas Roy, and journalist-turned-politicians Swapan Dasgupta and Jagannath Chattopadhyay.

The other Cabinet ministers are Shankar Ghosh, Saradwat Mukherjee, Deepak Burman, Manoj Oraon, Gouri Shankar Ghosh, Kalyan Chakraborty, Arup Kumar Das, Ajay Poddar and Dudh Kumar Mondal, The Indian Express reported.

Rajesh Mahata, Indranil Khan and Malati Rava Roy took oath as ministers of state with independent charge.

The ministers of state include Joyel Murmu, Ashok Dinda, Anandamoy Burman, Kaushik Chowdhury, Gargi Das Ghosh, Bhaskar Bhattacharya, Dibakar Gharami, Sumana Sarkar, Santanu Pramanik, Purnima Chakraborty and Umesh Rai, among others, The Telegraph reported.

The expansion came 27 days after Adhikari and five ministers were sworn in following the BJP's victory in the Assembly elections. On May...

Read more