While the chief ministerial face has not yet been officially announced, Leader of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari is widely seen as the frontrunner.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah areli kely to be among top BJP leaders attending the swearing-in ceremony of the party’s first government in West Bengal, scheduled for May 9 at Brigade Parade Ground in central Kolkata.
The event is being seen as a landmark moment, marking the Bharatiya Janata Party’s rise to power in a state where it had long struggled to establish a strong foothold. Several Union ministers, BJP president Nitin Nabin, and chief ministers from BJP-ruled states are also expected to attend the ceremony.
While the chief ministerial face has not yet been officially announced, Leader of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari is widely seen as the frontrunner. Other names under consideration include state BJP president Samik Bhattacharya, Union minister Sukanta Majumdar and former Rajya Sabha MP Swapan Dasgupta.
Announcing the event, Bhattacharya said the new government will take oath at 10 am on May 9. “The new BJP government will take oath on May 9 at 10 am at Brigade Parade Ground,” he said.
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.
During the campaign, Shah had 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.
Party leaders say the choice of date and messaging reflects a broader strategy to connect with the state’s cultural and intellectual traditions.
