Bengal’s first BJP chief minister will be sworn in at 10am on Saturday at the Brigade Parade Grounds with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and home minister Amit Shah in attendance.
After the ceremony, the chief minister, whose name is yet to be announced, will go to Writers’ Buildings, the erstwhile seat of power in Bengal before Mamata Banerjee shifted the state secretariat to Nabanna in Howrah in October 2013, as a symbolic gesture and spend some time there.
Thereafter, the chief minister will go to the Assembly, from where the executive head of the state will function for the moment.
The decision reflects the new BJP government’s reluctance to operate out of Nabanna, which is inextricably connected to Mamata.
Sources in the BJP said the party wanted to hold the oath-taking ceremony on May 9 as it is the birth anniversary of Rabindranath Tagore.
“We are often branded as an anti-Bengali party that does not understand the local culture. We want to mark the birth anniversary of Gurudev with the swearing-in ceremony of our government to fulfil our commitment to create a Sonar Bangla,” a BJP leader said.
State BJP president Samik Bhattacharya had during multiple interactions with the media said that if the BJP came to power in Bengal, the government would shift back to Writers’. However, with the renovation of the British-era building hanging fire for long, it will take some time before the new chief minister and the cabinet can move in.
“On May 8 evening, the name of the new chief minister will be announced by the party. But I don’t know the present condition of the building (Writers’). The new chief minister will take a call on this after consulting all quarters involved,” Bhattacharya, who visited Nabanna on Wednesday, said.
Bhattacharya said the new government would take oath at 10am on Saturday at the Brigade in the presence of Modi, Shah, senior Union ministers and the chief ministers of all NDA-ruled states.
Sources in Nabanna said they had been informed that the new chief minister would not come to Nabanna after the swearing-in and that the chief minister, along with the chief secretary and the home secretary, would go to Writers’ as a symbolic gesture to send out the message that the new government would function from there.
“But the chief minister will be at Writers’ only for a short while and then head to the Assembly to attend the first cabinet meeting. Other than the state secretariat, only the Assembly has the space required to hold a cabinet meeting,” an official said.
As the main block of Writers’ cannot be repaired immediately, a temporary office will have to be set up for the chief minister, chief secretary and the home secretary for their brief visit on Saturday.
“It appears that the annex building of the Assembly will be where a temporary office will be set up for the chief minister. Security arrangements can be far more comprehensive at the Assembly than at Soujayna, the state guest house at congested Alipore, which was also considered as the venue of the chief minister’s temporary office,” a senior official said.
The chief secretary held a meeting with officials on Wednesday morning to discuss how much time it would take to get the main block of Writers’ renovated.
“It was found that at least six to eight months are required for the renovation of the main block of Writers’ as only 25 per cent of the work had been completed in the past 13 years,” a PWD official said.
He said that once the civil work is completed, the electrical and IT infrastructure would be made operational before ministers could move into Writers’.
“Until the entire main block is renovated, the chief minister and other ministers cannot be allowed to move in because of security reasons. If the chief minister sits in the annex building of the Assembly for now, the other ministers can temporarily function from their respective departments’ current offices in Nabanna, the New Secretariat and other buildings in Salt Lake.
