PTI
Kolkata
The first Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in West Bengal will be sworn in at the Brigade Parade Ground here on May 9, heralding a saffron era in the eastern state that had long eluded the pan-Indian powerhouse.
Although who the next chief minister will be is still a mystery, Leader of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari is being seen as the frontrunner while the names of state BJP president Samik Bhattacharya, Union minister Sukanta Majumdar and former Rajya Sabha MP Swapan Dasgupta are also in the mix, party insiders said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, BJP president Nitin Nabin, several Union ministers and chief ministers of BJP- and NDA-ruled states are expected to attend the oath ceremony, with indications emerging that the central leadership is inclined towards picking a «bhumiputra» face rooted in Bengal›s linguistic and cultural ethos to head the government.
“The new BJP government will take oath on May 9 at 10 am at Brigade Parade Ground,” the party’s state president Bhattacharya announced on Wednesday.
Adhikari offered prayers at a Hanuman statue in Nandigram and paid his respects to the BJP workers who died in political violence during the party›s long struggle to come to power in the state.
“We will work in such a way that the BJP government in Bengal stays for 100 years,” Adhikari said, expressing hope that the BJP›s vote share would rise from the current 46 per cent to 60 per cent in future elections.
Elected from two constituencies, Adhikari said the central leadership would guide him on which seat to retain.
“I will vacate one seat within 10 days. The party will decide which one I retain. I will not forget my responsibility towards the people of Bhabanipur and Nandigram,” he said.
Adhikari on Monday defeated Banerjee in Bhabanipur by over 15,000 votes, capturing what was long seen as her safest political refuge, and also won from Nandigram as the BJP bagged 207 of the 293 seats contested in the 294-strong assembly.
During the campaign, Shah repeatedly asserted that the chief minister would be a «son of the soil», born and educated in the state, in an attempt to blunt the TMC›s sustained attack that the BJP represented an «outsider» political culture alien to Bengal›s social and intellectual traditions.
Significantly, the swearing-in ceremony will be held on the 25th day of Baisakh in the Bengali calendar – observed across the state as Rabindra Jayanti, the birth anniversary of Rabindranath Tagore – lending the event a deeper cultural symbolism.
According to BJP leaders, the choice of date is aimed at embedding the party›s historic rise within Bengal›s cultural imagination and countering the long-standing perception battle over identity and belonging.
Over the last decade, the BJP has steadily attempted to appropriate and reinterpret icons of Bengal›s cultural nationalism – from Tagore and Swami Vivekananda to Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and Syama Prasad Mookerjee – as part of a broader ideological effort to expand its emotional and political footprint in the state.
Party insiders said the leadership was also conscious of the need to balance Bengal›s competing regional aspirations while choosing the chief ministerial face, with discussions also taking place around whether greater representation should be accorded to north Bengal, a region where the BJP has made substantial electoral gains over successive elections.
Meanwhile, Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav raised doubts about the fairness of the Bengal poll process, and demanded that the Supreme Court order that the video recordings of vote counting to be made public.
«When court proceedings have gone live, why can›t vote counting go live?» Yadav said.
«Why is CCTV not live? Why are they so afraid of it? We demand the Supreme Court immediately take cognisance of the West Bengal polls and put the video of the counting in front of the people of the country,» he said.
Yadav refused to give a direct reply on the DMK calling the Congress a «backstabber» after the latter announced it would back Vijay›s Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK).
«Why should I tell you whom I will rely on or not?» he said.
Yadav alleged that some elections and bypolls in Uttar Pradesh in recent years had been marred by discrepancies during the counting process.
The former Uttar Pradesh chief minister alleged that what happened during the elections in West Bengal could be replicated on a larger scale in Uttar Pradesh, up for assembly polls next year.
