KOLKATA: Suvendu Adhikari on Saturday took oath as the first BJP chief minister of West Bengal, marking a watershed moment that redrew the state's political landscape after decades of resistance to saffron politics.
Governor RN Ravi administered the oath of office and secrecy to Adhikari at a grand ceremony attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union ministers, chief ministers of NDA-ruled states and senior BJP leaders.
Soon after Adhikari's swearing-in, senior BJP leader and party's former state unit chief Dilip Ghosh took oath as a minister in the new cabinet.
BJP MLAs Agnimitra Paul, Ashok Kirtania, Nisith Pramanik and Kshudiram Tudu were also administered the oath as ministers.
The BJP chose Brigade Parade Grounds - once the citadel of massive Left rallies and later a key battleground of the TMC - for the swearing-in ceremony.
Thousands of BJP supporters thronged the venue, waving saffron flags and raising the 'Jay Shri Ram' slogan as Adhikari, one of the principal architects of the BJP's rise in Bengal, took oath amid elaborate security arrangements.
The BJP secured 207 seats in the 294-member assembly in the recently concluded elections, ending the Trinamool Congress' 15-year rule and scripting its most significant breakthrough in eastern India.
The ceremony was attended by senior BJP leaders, MPs, industrialists and film personalities, with the saffron camp projecting the event as the beginning of a "Sonar Bangla" under a "double-engine" government.
Adhikari, who defeated TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee in the assembly Bhabanipur seat and retained his Nandigram constituency, was unanimously elected leader of the BJP legislature party on Friday in the presence of Union Home Minister Amit Shah.