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.
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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.)
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