MamataBanerjee after taking her oath as West Bengal CM for the third consecutive timeat the 'Throne Room' in Raj Bhavan in Kolkata on Wednesday morning announcedthat handling the Covid situation in the state and tackling post poll violenceand the overall law and order situation in the state will be her priority.
Thechief minister's convoy left her residence at Harish Chatterjee Street popularlyknown as Kalighat at 10.10 a.m. and reached Raj Bhawan at 10.20 a.m. Like anyother day she sat by the side of the driver but the usual scene of peoplestanding by the side of the road to have a glimpse of the chief minister wasmissing because she had requested everybody to stay indoors. Though the curiouseyes were absent but the entire road was decorated with blue-white -- thecolour combination branded by Trinamool Congress and large footballs --highlighting the party's theme song -- 'Khela Hobe' (We will play).
ChiefMinister Mamata Banerjee who was escorted by her nephew Abhishek Banerjee andpoll strategist Prashant Kishore reached Raj Bhawan and exchanged pleasantrieswith the guest that included Trinamool hierarchy Arup Biswas, Subrata Mukherjee,Partha Chatterjee, Subrata Bakshi and Firhad Hakim. Though opposition leadersand personalities like BJP state President Dilip Ghosh, Congress statePresident Adhir Ranjan Cowdhury, veteran leader Abdul Mannan, Left FrontChairman Biman Basu, former chief minister Buddhadeb Bahttacharjee and BCCIPresident Sourav Ganguly were invited but they were not present.
Theoath taking ceremony started after Governor Jagdeep Dhankar entered the hall at10.44 a.m. and his entry was followed by the national anthem. The ceremonystarted at 10.45 a.m. and lasted for seven minutes where Mamata Banerjee tookher oath in Bengali.
Speakingto the media after that the chief minister said, "I shall start my workfrom today only. I shall go to Nanbanna and do a high-level meeting on theCovid situation in the state. We need to review the situation and severalmeasures will be announced in the evening. We hope we will be able to controlthe situation as we did before".
"Iwould also like to take this opportunity to appeal to all people and workers ofall political parties to maintain peace and harmony. Bengal has a culture andwe should not forget that. There are some sporadic incidents. I have gotinformation but the administration was not in my hand for the last threemonths. I assure everybody to take necessary action and handle the situationstrongly but before that I would like to appeal to everybody to stay in apeaceful manner," she added.
Ghoshhad told the media that he decided to quit the oath taking ceremony because alot of the BJP workers are being killed all over the state in post pollviolence. State Congress President Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said that he didn'treceive any invitation letter from the government.