Three weeks after taking charge as the first BJP chief minister of West Bengal, Suvendu Adhikari, on Monday expanded his Council of Ministers to 41, by inducting 35 new members. There were no big surprises, but a few small ones for sure, as the party tried to balance regional, caste, and gender representation.
While veterans got the coveted seats in the Cabinet, many first-time MLAs like Kalita Majhi, who worked as house help, and 32-year-old Biraj Biswas were also inducted as Ministers of State.
Of the 35 new ministers sworn in by Governor R N Ravi at the Lok Bhavan, 13 were inducted as Cabinet Ministers, three as Ministers of State with Independent Charge, and 19 as Ministers of State.
The government can have three more ministers as the Constitution caps the size of the Council of Ministers to 15 per cent of the total strength of the Assembly – for West Bengal, with 294 seats, it is 44.
The 13 MLAs, who were sworn in as Cabinet Ministers on Monday, included Tapash Roy, Dipak Burman, Shankar Ghosh, Arjun Singh, Manoj Oraon, Gouri Shankar Ghosh, Jagannath Chattopadhyay, Swapan Dasgupta, Kalyan Chakraborty, Anup Kumar Das, Ajay Kumar Poddar, Sharadwat Mukhopadhyay, and Dudh Kumar Mondol.
Nineteen were inducted as Ministers of State, including Ashok Dinda, Umesh Roy, Koushik Chowdhury, Kalita Maji, Moumita Biswas Misra, Gargi Ghosh Das, Dipankar Jana, Purnima Chakraborty, Bishal Lama, Harikrishna Bera, Anandamoy Burman, Shantanu Pramanik, Biraj Biswas, Amiya Kisku, Juyel Murmu, Bhaskar Bhattacharya, Dibakar Gharami, Sumana Sarkar, and Nadiar Chand Bouri.
Malati Rava Roy, Indranil Khan, and Rajesh Mahato took oath as Ministers of State (Independent Charge).
Earlier on May 9, apart from the CM, five other Cabinet Ministers were sworn-in, including Union Minister-turned-state leader Nisith Pramanik, Agnimitra Paul, Dilip Ghosh, Ashok Kirtania, and Kshudiram Tudu.
With Monday’s expansion, there are six women ministers among the 41, as opposed to nine women ministers in the previous TMC Cabinet.
As for the representation from various castes, the BJP government now has four tribal ministers and eight Scheduled Castes (SC) ministers.
Additionally, nine ministers hail from north Bengal –
Malati Rava Roy, Anandamay Burman, Bishal Lama, Koushik Chowdhury, and Biraj Biswas from Karandighi in Uttar Dinajpur, among others – increasing the representation of the region in the BJP government.
There was also a clear imprint of the RSS in the new Cabinet with at least nine RSS-turned-BJP leaders like Tapas Roy, Dudh Kumar Mondal, Gouri Shankar Ghosh, and Dipak Barman, among others, getting inducted.
The inductees also represented the cross-section of West Bengal’s society, with doctors, academics, journalists, and even those who worked in blue-collar jobs.
The BJP inducted Sharadwat Mukherjee, an oncologist who won from Bidhhannagar, and Kalyan Chakraborty, a professor from Khardaha, as Cabinet ministers.
Another oncologist from Behala Paschim, Indranil Khan, was sworn in as Minister of State (Independent Charge), while Kalita Majhi, who worked as a house help before foraying into politics, has been inducted as Minister of State.
Shankar Ghosh, the MLA from North Bengal who served as chief whip of the party in the previous Assembly, has been made Cabinet Minister.
Barrackpore strongman Arjun Singh, who began his political career with the Congress and hopped between TMC and BJP in the last decade, has also been made a Cabinet Minister.
Journalists-turned-politicians Swapan Dasgupta, who won the prestigious Rashbehari seat in south Kolkata, and Jagannath Chattopadhyay from Suri in Birbhum were also awarded Cabinet berths.
Till late Monday night, there was, however, no word on the portfolios of the new ministers.
“The distribution of portfolios for the ministers will take place on Wednesday during a meeting which will be chaired by the CM at the secretariat,” Cabinet Minister Tapas Roy said.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah extended his wishes to the ministers who took their oath of office. “I am fully confident that in the double-engine government, under the guidance of PM Shri @narendramodi ji and the leadership of Shri @SuvenduWB ji, you all will work with complete dedication, commitment, and spirit of public service and play a crucial role in realising the vision of a Sonar Bangla. All my best wishes are with you,” Shah wrote on X.