KOLKATA: An army of newly elected MLAs of the Trinamool Congress met Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari at his chamber during the swearing-in ceremony of legislators at the West Bengal Legislative Assembly on Wednesday.
Among the Trinamool Congress MLAs who met Suvendu — now heading the BJP’s first-ever government in West Bengal — were legislators such as Niyamat Sheikh from Hariharpara, Akhrujjaman from Raghunathganj, and Imani Biswas from Suti.
The BJP fielded only Hindu candidates from all 294 constituencies in the Bengal assembly elections and achieved a landslide victory by winning 207 seats, while the ruling Trinamool Congress, led by Mamata Banerjee, suffered a disastrous defeat, bagging only 80 constituencies in the state.
Trinamool Congress has around 24 Muslim MLAs out of 80 legislators.
The rush of Trinamool Congress MLAs seeking to meet Suvendu at his chamber has raised eyebrows of many legislators belonging to the BJP camp.
It’s a political courtesy for MLAs of both ruling and opposition camps to meet the CM during the swearing-in ceremony.
However, political observers speculated that there might be some equations at work in the opposition camp’s legislators, mainly belonging to the minority community, rushing to meet the CM of a BJP government, even as the party had not fielded a single Muslim candidate in the elections
Suvendu, after becoming the CM for the first time, reached the Assembly complex around 11 am today, paid floral tributes to the statue of B R Ambedkar. He was accorded a ‘guard of honour’ there.
He was also given the same honour at the state secretariat Nabanna on Monday when he visited the state’s corridor of power as the CM.
He also knelt at the entrance of the House and touched his forehead to the ground before entering the Assembly chamber. He then went to his room and offered a prayer there.
The CM entered into the main house of the legislative assembly to take oath as MLA from Bhabanipur constituency, where he defeated his counterpart Mamata Banerjee of Trinamool Congress by a margin of more than 15,000 votes.
He had contested simultaneously from the most high-profile Bhabanipur seat in the state and the Nandigram constituency, his home turf in East Midnapore district.
He had also won from Nandigram, where a by-election will be held in the coming months because the winning candidate, Suvendu, decided to take the oath as an MLA from Bhabanipur, the home turf of the former CM and Trinamool supremo Mamata Banerjee.
Today, the Pro tem speaker, Tapas Roy, administered the oath.
Agnimitra Paul, Dilip Ghosh, Ashok Kirtania, Kshudiram Tudu and Nisith Pramanik were among those sworn in as MLAs in the 294-member House.
With heavy deployment of forces, security arrangements at the assembly premises were strengthened. Swearing-in of remaining MLAs will be held in the assembly on Thursday.
