Senior BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari on Saturday took oath as the Chief Minister of West Bengal, heading the state’s first Bharatiya Janata Party-led government. Along with him, five other members of the Council of Ministers were also sworn in.
The ministers inducted into the cabinet include former BJP national vice-president and ex-state president Dilip Ghosh, fashion designer-turned-politician and two-time BJP MLA Agnimitra Paul, former Union Minister of State for Home Nisith Pramanik, along with Ashok Kirtania and Khudiram Tudu.
After Adhikari, Ghosh was the second minister to take oath, followed by Paul, Kirtania, Tudu and Pramanik. However, the portfolios of the newly sworn-in ministers had not been announced till the filing of this report.
Political observers noted that the BJP leadership appeared to maintain caste and community representation in its first Bengal cabinet. Kirtania represents the influential Matua community, while Tudu is a tribal leader. The BJP had performed strongly in Assembly constituencies dominated by Matua and tribal voters in the recently concluded elections.
Ghosh belongs to the Other Backward Classes (OBC) community, Paul comes from a Kayastha background, and Pramanik represents the Rajbanshi community of North Bengal, where the BJP registered major electoral gains against the Trinamool Congress.
Adhikari himself belongs to a Bengali Brahmin family. Analysts believe the composition of the first batch of ministers reflects the BJP’s attempt to project social inclusivity and balanced representation across communities.
During the election campaign, Union Home Minister Amit Shah had repeatedly described the BJP’s prospective Chief Minister as a “son of the soil”, a Bengali and someone educated in Bengali medium, without directly naming Adhikari. Political circles now see Adhikari’s appointment as consistent with those remarks.
Meanwhile, the All India Trinamool Congress, now the principal Opposition party in the Assembly, is yet to announce the name of its Leader of the Opposition — a position previously held by Adhikari between 2021 and 2026.