West Bengal ministerial council sworn in
A 43-member ministerial council, led by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, was sworn in today -- eight days after Trinamool Congress stormed back to power for a third consecutive time in state assembly elections.
Mamata drafted in 16 new faces, including former cricketer Manoj Tiwari and ex-police officer Humayun Kabir, reports our New Delhi correspondent.
In the new ministerial council, consisting of 24 cabinet ministers and 19 ministers of state, Mamata has retained almost all the senior ministers in her previous government like Subrata Mukherjee, Partha Chatterjee, Firhad Hakim, Amit Mitra, Sobhandeb Chatterjee, Jyoti Priya Mallick, Moloy Ghatak, Aroop Biswas, Shashi Panja, Javed Ahmed Khan and Bratya Basu.
The new ministers took oath in the Raj Bhavan's Throne Room at 10:45 am.
A notable absentee in the new ministry is Madan Mitra, who was the transport minister in the last government.
The unveiling of Mamata's new ministerial council came on a day when West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar -- on a request by the Central Bureau of Investigation -- sanctioned the prosecution of four senior TMC leaders. Firhad Hakim, Subrata Mukherjee, Madan Mitra, and Sovan Chatterjee were sanctioned in connection with purported Narada sting tapes that showed the TMC leaders allegedly accepting money in return for favours.
The Narada sting tapes, made public before the 2016 assembly elections in West Bengal, were claimed to have been shot in 2014 by a news portal.
Hakim, Mukherjee, Mitra, and Chatterjee were ministers in the Mamata cabinet when the tapes were allegedly made in 2014.
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