Mamata Banerjee’s trusted lieutenants among 43 MLAs likely to be sworn into West Bengal cabinet

Kolkata: Several fresh faces and a number of trusted lieutenants of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee will be sworn-in as ministers at the Raj Bhawan in Kolkata on Monday, a source in the Trinamool Congress said. Altogether 43 ministers, including 19 ministers of state, are likely to take oath, the source said. One of them will be Amit Mitra, who was the finance minister under Banerjee in her two previous terms since 2011, but was not made a candidate in the recently concluded election due to his ill health. However, the TMC supremo wants Mitra back at the helm of the finance department and has plans to make him a member of the assembly through a by-election, the senior leader of the ruling party said. Though the TMC has won with a thumping majority in the recently held assembly election, Banerjee herself lost from Nandigram and she too needs to win a bypoll. Veteran leaders such as Subrata Mukherjee, Partha Chatterjee, Firhad Hakim, Jyoti Priya Mallick, Moloy Ghatak, Aroop Biswas, Dr Shashi Panja and Javed Ahmed Khan will be made cabinet ministers, the source said. There will be 24 cabinet ministers. New faces in the council of ministers will include former IPS officer Humayun Kabir, former Bengal Ranji captain Manoj Tiwari and Siuli Saha, he said. While Kabir will be among 10 persons who will become ministers of state (independent charge), Tiwari and Saha will feature in the list of nine MLAs who will be sworn-in as ministers of state. Banerjee is also scheduled to hold the first Cabinet meeting on Monday after the swearing-in ceremony, he said.