Nisith Pramanik bags berth, north Bengal hopes for more ministers in Suvendu's cabinet
Telegraph | 10 May 2026
North Bengal aspirations soared high as the BJP inducted Nisith Pramanik, the party’s candidate who had won from the Mathabhanga Assembly seat in Cooch Behar, into the Suvendu Adhikari government on Saturday.
As Suvendu took the oath as the chief minister, five other MLAs of the party were also sworn in as members of his cabinet. Among them was Pramanik, an ex-MP and a former Union minister of state, and the sole north Bengal face.
“There is a huge expectation from across north Bengal that some more candidates should be included in the cabinet as ministers and ministers of state, especially because the BJP tally has increased to 40 from 30 (out of 54 Assembly seats in north Bengal) this time. The chief minister and the state leaders are aware of it, and we are confident that more BJP MLAs from this region would be inducted into the state cabinet in due course,” said a senior BJP functionary in Siliguri.
Of the eight districts in north Bengal, the BJP won all Assembly seats in four of the eight districts — Alipurduar, Jalpaiguri, Darjeeling and Kalimpong. Trinamool, which had won 23 seats in the 2021 Assembly polls, could bag only 14 this time.
“Those who have voted for the party, especially from these districts, want their MLAs to be members of the state cabinet. There is also a demand for more cabinet ministers with important departments like education, urban development and municipal affairs, forest and the north Bengal development from the region, unlike the Trinamool government, which had inducted only one or two MLAs from north Bengal as cabinet ministers during its three terms,” a BJP leader in Jalpaiguri said.
After the 2021 Assembly elections, Trinamool selected two MLAs as cabinet ministers, while five others were posted as ministers of state in different departments.
In 2022, one of the MoS, Paresh Adhikary, was replaced over anomalies found in the recruitment of his daughter as a teacher, by another MLA from the region.
“The BJP’s seats have gone up in north Bengal this time and the party has underscored that it will give huge importance to the region in terms of development and infrastructure. These two factors have raised people’s aspirations,” said a political observer.