First meeting of new Bengal cabinet today; CM Adhikari to chair three administrative meets

Kolkata, May 11 (IANS) The first meeting of the first Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led West Bengal cabinet, led by the ninth Chief Minister of the state, Suvendu Adhikari, will be held at the current state secretariat at Nabanna in Mandirtala, Howrah district, on Monday.

Although the BJP had decided that its ministers would operate from the original state secretariat, the Writers’ Buildings, in central Kolkata, where renovations are taking longer, the new cabinet, including the Chief Minister, will operate from Nabanna.

Nabanna was originally designed and projected during the Left Front regime as a garments hub. However, just two years after coming to power in 2011, Mamata Banerjee, in 2013, decided to shift the state secretariat to Nabanna, reportedly following the advice of her personal astrologer.

Accordingly, the new state secretariat started functioning from Nabanna on October 5, 2013. However, with the BJP now in power in the state, it has been decided to take the state secretariat back to the historical Writers’ Building, from which all the Chief Ministers of West Bengal before Mamata Banerjee, starting from late Prafulla Chandra Ghosh to late Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, operated.

It is learnt CM Adhikari’s day will start at 10.30 a.m. with a meeting with the BJP’s state president in West Bengal and the party Rajya Sabha member, Samik Bhattacharya. Thereafter, at noon, CM Adhikari will chair the first meeting of the state cabinet, where the names of additional members of the state cabinet as well as the portfolio distribution will be finalised.

After the meeting of the state cabinet, the Chief Minister is also scheduled to chair three important cabinet meetings.

The first administrative meeting to be chaired by him will be with top state bureaucrats, including the Chief Secretary and other departmental secretaries.

His second administrative meeting will be with all the District Magistrates. His third meeting will be with the top police officers of the state, including the Commissioners of Kolkata Police and other police commissionerates and the district police superintendents.

Adhikari has already said that as the Chief Minister, he will run his administration on a “collective leadership” basis instead of following the style of his predecessor, Mamata Banerjee.

--IANS

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