Mamata to be sworn in as West Bengal Chief Minister on May 5: party sources
Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee, who led her party to a landslide victory in West Bengal assembly elections, will be sworn in as Chief Minister for a third straight term on May 5 (Wednesday), party Secretary General Partha Chatterjee said today.
The decision was taken at a meeting in Kolkata Mamata had with TMC's newly-elected lawmakers in the state.
TMC won 213 of the state's 294 assembly constituencies while main opposition BJP got 77.
Counting of votes was held for 292 seats as voting for two seats will take place at a later date, our New Delhi correspondent reports.
Mamata became Chief Minister for the first time in May 2011 when the TMC toppled the Left front which had been in power continuously for 34 years. Five years later, she successfully won a re-election.
However, Mamata lost from the assembly constituency of Nandigram where she was pitted against her former aide, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Suvendu Adhikari.
After a see-saw count of votes in Nandigram during which fortunes swung from one end to another, Adhikari eventually won by 1,956 votes, as per the Election Commission of India (ECI) website.
Mamata, however, said she would move the Supreme Court challenging the EC result even as the poll body rejected TMC's demand for a recount in Nandigram.
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