Mamata to take oath as Bengal CM for third time

Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee will be sworn in as the chief minister of West Bengal for the third time at Raj Bhavan on Wednesday.

Kolkata (West Bengal): Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee will be sworn in as the chief minister of West Bengal for the third time at Raj Bhavan on Wednesday.

Only a few invitees will be present at the programme owing to the unprecedented rise in the Covid-19 cases.

BCCI president Sourav Ganguly, former CM Buddhadev Bhattacharjee, Congress leader Abdul Mannan, left-front chairman Biman Bose have been invited for the ceremony.

After taking the oath, Mamata will be given a guard of honor by the Kolkata police at Nabanna.

The MLAs of the TMC unanimously elected Banerjee as the legislative party leader at a meeting here, its secretary-general Partha Chatterjee said.

The TMC legislators also elected Biman Banerjee, the speaker in the outgoing House, as the pro-tem speaker in the new Assembly.

"The newly-elected members will take oath in the Assembly from May 6," Chatterjee told reporters at the party headquarters here on Monday after the meeting of the legislators.

The TMC came to power for the third time in a row in West Bengal, pocketing 213 of the 292 assembly seats that went to polls, while its main challenger, the BJP, bagged 77 seats.