Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday welcomed people with full bows on stage during the swearing-in ceremony of the new government. Government of West Bengal in Kolkata. The ceremony marked the beginning of the first BJP government in Bengal, with BJP legislative party leader Suvendu Adhikari taking oath as the state’s ninth Chief Minister at Brigade Parade.
“I bow to Jana Shakti of West Bengal. The blessings of the people are the truest force of democracy and the noblest source of public resolve,” Modi wrote on X. A video shared online showed the Prime Minister bowing to the gathering from the stage.
Many senior BJP leaders attended the event. This includes Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh, JP Nadda and Dharmendra Pradhan. Chief ministers from BJP-ruled states were also present, including Assam’s Himanta Biswa Sarma, Tripura’s Manik Saha, Uttarakhand’s Pushkar Singh Dhami and Delhi’s Rekha Gupta.
“The BJP government has arrived – a government for everyone in Bengal,” Amit Shah wrote on X, alongside a video of Adhikari taking the oath.
Who took oath alongside Adhikari
During the programme, Modi also met a 98-year-old senior BJP worker Makhanlal Sarkar and sought his blessings. Later, Prime Minister Adhikari paid tribute to Rabindranath Tagore on the occasion of his 165th birth anniversary according to the Bengali calendar.
Besides Adhikari, five BJP MLAs were sworn in as ministers in the new West Bengal government. The first cabinet includes senior BJP leader Dilip Ghosh, BJP Mahila Morcha leader Agnimitra Paul, North 24 Parganas MLA Ashok Kirtania, tribal leader Kshwaram Tudu and former Union minister Nisith Pramanik. Governor RN Ravi took the oath.
West Bengal elections 2026
The BJP won West Bengal Assembly Elections 2026. The saffron party won 207 seats and ended the 15-year rule of the Trinamool Congress government in the state. The Transitional Military Council won 80 seats.
Adhikari was one of the key figures in the elections after defeating Mamata Banerjee in Bhabanipur by more than 15,000 votes, according to Election Commission data. He also retained the Nandigram Assembly seat, where he secured over 1.27 lakh votes, according to the EC.
After taking the oath, Adhikari said the new government would work through “collective leadership” and that government ministers would participate in decision-making.
Adhikari, once a senior Trinamool leader and a key figure in the Nandigram movement that helped bring the TMC to power in 2011, joined the BJP after widening differences with Banerjee in recent years. He later became one of the main faces of the BJP in the state.
