9 New Ministers Inducted in West Bengal Cabinet; Babul Supriyo Gets IT, Tourism

This comes after the arrest of senior Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader Partha Chatterjee by the ED.

Nine new ministers, including former Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Babul Supriyo, have been sworn-in amid the expansion of the Mamata Banerjee-led West Bengal Cabinet on Wednesday, 3 August.

(Photo: Accessed by The Quint)

Nine new ministers, including former Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Babul Supriyo, have been sworn-in amid the expansion of the Mamata Banerjee-led West Bengal Cabinet on Wednesday, 3 August.

Apart from Supriyo, the other MLAs who took the oath as ministers include Snehasis Chakraborty, Partha Bhowmick, Udayan Guha, Pradip Mazumder, Tajmul Hossain, Satyajit Barman. Birbaha Hansda and Biplab Roy Chowdhury, as per news agency ANI.

Hansda and Chowdhury were sworn-in as ministers having independent charge.

This comes days after the arrest of senior Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader Partha Chatterjee by the Enforcement Directorate on the charge of alleged corruption in the recruitment of teachers in government-sponsored and aided schools.

Chatterjee, who had been sacked from the TMC and relieved of all his ministerial duties following his arrest, had several key portfolios in the state Cabinet, including industry and commerce, and parliamentary affairs.

New Cabinet

Here is the list of the new West Bengal Cabinet:

Mamata Banerjee

Chief Minister

Home and Hill Affairs

Personal and Administrative Reforms

Health and Family Welfare

Land and Land Reforms

Refugee Relief and Rehabilitation

Information and Cultural Affairs

Planning and Statistics

Programme Monitoring

Manas Ranjan Bhunia

Water Resources Investigation and Development

Environment

Moloy Ghatak

Law Department

Judicial Department

Labor

Aroop Biswas

Power

Youth Services

Housing

Ujjwal Biswas

Science and Technology

Bio-Technology

Firhad Hakim

Urban Development and Municipal Affairs

Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay

Agriculture

Parliamentary Affairs

Pulak Roy

Public Health Engineering and Public Works Department

Shashi Panja

Women and Child Development and Social Welfare

Industry, Commerce and Enterprises

Public Enterprises and Industrial Reconstruction

Biplab Mitra

Consumer Affairs

Becharam Manna

MoS

Agricultural Marketing (Independent Charge)

Panchayats and Rural Development

Akhil Giri

MoS

Correctional Administration (Independent Charge)

Indranil Sen

MoS

Technical Education, Training and Skill Development (Independent Charge)

Information and Cultural Affairs

Srikant Mahato

MoS

Consumer Affairs

Birbaha Hansda

MoS

Self-Help Group and Self Employment (Independent Charge)

Forests

Babul Supriyo

Information Technology

Electronics

Tourism

Snehasis Chakraborty

Transport

Partha Bhowmick

Irrigation and Waterways

Udayan Guha

North Bengal Development

Pradeep Majumder

Panchayats and Rural Development

Biplab Roy Chowdhury

Mos

Fisheries (Independent Charge)

Tajmul Hossain

Mos

MSME and Textiles

Satyajit Barman

MoS

Education

Supriyo had resigned from the BJP and switched to the TMC after being dropped from the Union Cabinet in 2021. Currently, he is the TMC MLA from the Ballygunge constituency.

Speaking about the reshuffle earlier, Banerjee had said, "We don't have plan to dissolve the whole ministry and form a new one. Yes, there will be a reshuffle. We lost ministers, Subrata Mukherjee and Sadhan Pande. Partha is in jail, so all their work has to be done. Not possible for me to handle it alone."

'Just an Eyewash': Bengal BJP Chief on Cabinet Expansion

Responding to Banerjee's announcement, Bengal BJP chief Sukanta Majumdar claimed that it was "just an eyewash."

"With the corruption cases that have come to light, people of Bengal have understood that it's a government of thieves and thieves are sitting in the Cabinet. Such a decision is being taken to divert attention," he was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.

Banerjee had also announced that the number of districts in the state would be increased to 30.

"Earlier there were 23 districts in Bengal, now it has been increased to 30. The seven new districts include Sunderban, Ichhamati, Ranaghat, Bishnupur, Jangipur, Behrampur, and one more district will be named in Basirhat," she said.

(With inputs from ANI.)