KOLKATA: West Bengal Chief Minister, Mamata Banerjee, took oath as the newly elected MLA from Bhawanipur Assembly constituency in Kolkata on Thursday. The oath-taking ceremony was organised at the West Bengal Assembly premises on Thursday afternoon. It is the third consecutive time that she has won the seat in Assembly by-polls in the Bhawanipur constituency.
West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankar administered the oath of office to Mamata Banerjee. The two other newly-elected Trinamool Congress MLAs namely Zakir Hussain from Jangipur and Amirul Islam from Samsergunj also took oath as MLAs. To recall, five months back the Chief Minister got defeated from the Nandigram Assembly constituency in East Midnapore district. The present leader of the opposition in the West Bengal assembly, Suvendu Adhikari defeated her.
The high stakes WB Assembly by-elections took place with the condition that she is required to get elected as an MLA within the next six months to retain her position as Chief Minister. The state agriculture minister, Sovandeb Chattopadhyay, who got elected from Bhawanipur five months back, vacated the chair to make room for the CM.
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On September 30, the by-elections for Bhabanipur was conducted and the results for the same was declared on October 3. Banerjee got elected by a record margin of over 58,000 votes. Dhankar tweeted the affirmations of oath for the elected members of the West Bengal Legislative Assembly. Generally, the speaker administers the oath for newly elected MLAs and for that the assembly authorities need to take permission from the Governor’s office. The governor hands over the authority to the speaker. But earlier this week, West Bengal Governor had said that he will administer Banerjee's oath.
