Mamata Banerjee's swearing-in to feature Sourav Ganguly as guest list throws up surprises

In an interesting development, the guest list of the swearing-in ceremony of Trinamool Congress Supremo Mamata Banerjee has been revealed which includes the names of several opposition party leaders. Apart from politicians, the name of former Indian Cricket Team Captain and BCCI chief Saurav Ganguly also finds a mention in the guest list. The politicians in the list include Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Choudhury, former CM Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, state BJP chief Dilip Ghosh among others.

Mamata Banerjee was unanimously elected as the leader of the TMC's Legislative Council at a party meeting in Kolkata on Monday. She will take oath as Chief Minister at 10:45 am on Wednesday at Raj Bhavan. The function is said to be a low-key affair with a limited audience, due to the current COVID-19 situation.

Here is the list of all the guests invited for the oath ceremony: 

1. Former CM Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee
2. Biman Bose
3. Dilip Ghosh 
4. Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury
5. Manoj Tigga
6. Biman Banerjee 
7. Subrata Mukherjee
8. Partha Chatterjee
9. Prashant Kishor
10. Abhishek Banerjee 
11. Dev (Deepak Adhikari)
12. Sourav Ganguly
13. Abdul Mannan

TMC wins West Bengal elections

Mamata Banerjee met state Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar on Monday to stake claim to form the next government, after her party's landslide victory in the assembly elections. TMC has returned back to power in West Bengal by defeating the BJP with a clear majority. As per EC's data, TMC has won 213 seats while BJP in 77 seats. On the other hand, the Congress-Left-ISF combination has failed to win a single seat. While Independent candidates have won 2 seats, BJP ally AJSU has won 1 seat. While the JP Nadda-led party won 74 more seats than the previous election, its vote share of 38.13% could not pose a challenge to TMC which garnered a vote share of 47.94%. Although the ruling party bettered its performance compared to 2016, Mamata Banerjee suffered defeat in Nandigram to her ex-confidante turned rival Suvendu Adhikari of BJP.

(IMAGE: PTI/ Jagdeep Dhankhar Twitter)