Buddha sworn in as West Bengal CM

KOLKATA: Buddhadeb Bhattacharya was on Thursday sworn in as the chief minister of the Left Front government in West Bengal which returned to power for a historic seventh term.

Governor Gopal Krishna Gandhi administered the oath of office and secrecy to Bhattacharya and his council of ministers at a no-frills ceremony at Raj Bhavan here in the presence of the country's top industrialists and celebrities from various walks of life.

Bhattacharya will lead a 44-member council of ministers which includes many old faces as well as new in keeping with the wishes of the chief minister whose charisma and pro-business stance seem to be behind the Left Front's landslide victory.

The new government has 33 cabinet ministers and 11 ministers of state. Hashim Abdul Halim will again preside over the new assembly as speaker.

The high-profile swearing-in ceremony was attended among others by cricketer Sourav Ganguly, Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee, Communist leader Prakash Karat, filmmaker Mrinal Sen, noted journalist N. Ram and industrialist Pawan Ruia.  The Opposition Trinamool Congress boycotted the ceremony.

Though the CPI-(M), the main constituent of the Left Front, has not removed the big 'non-performing' or 'controversial' names in the previous government because of the insistence of party stalwarts like Jyoti Basu, Bhattacharya has managed to bring in 16 new faces.

The chief minister has kept with him portfolios like home, information and cultural affairs, hill affairs, science and technology, development and planning, minorities’ development and welfare, food processing and horticulture, personnel and administrative reforms.

Industry Minister Nirupam Sen, who is the second in command in the ministry and a trusted lieutenant of Bhattacharya in implementing his industrial policies, has retained his portfolio.

Among the new ministers, the most prominent would be Jadavpur University teacher and electronics engineer Debesh Das, a first time legislator, who will be given the charge of IT, a key department for the industry-friendly chief minister.

The prominent CPI-M ministers whose portfolios have been changed include Manab Mukherjee and Jogesh Burman who lost the IT and forest departments respectively. 

Some of the other new faces are Sudarshan Roy Chowdhury (higher education), Partha De (school education), Tapan Roy (mass education and library), Rekha Goswami (self-help) and Rabilal Maitra (law).

Bhattacharya had long been planning a change in the ministry of education, a sector where he admits to a mediocre performance by previous Left Front governments.

However, two other important ministries - health and finance - have remained with the previous ministers, Surya Kanta Mishra and Asim Dasgupta respectively, belying speculation that the axe would fall on them.

Transport and Sports Affairs Minister Subhas Chakraborty, who does not share a good rapport with Bhattacharya, has also retained his ministry, thanks to the wishes of his political mentor and former chief minister Jyoti Basu.