Mamata Banerjee sworn-in as West Bengal Chief Minister for a second term

Trinamool Congress chairperson Mamata Banerjee was sworn-in as the chief minister of West Bengal for second successive five-year term on 27 May 2016. Governor Keshri Nath Tripathi administered her oath of office and secrecy.

This is for the first time that a chief minister will take oath on Red Road. Banerjee, the state’s eighth chief minister and the first woman to occupy the post, took her oath in Bengali.

The 42-member ministry, of them 18 are new faces, has seven ministers from the minority community. Banerjee is among the four women representatives in the ministry.

Earlier on 19 May 2016, her party swept the electoral mandate begging 211 seats of the 294-seat Assembly.

Mamata Banerjee

• Born 5 January 1955, Banerjee has been Chief Minister of West Bengal since 2011.

• She is also the first woman to hold the office.

• Banerjee founded the party All India Trinamool Congress (AITMC or TMC) in 1997 and became its chairperson.

• She is often referred to as Didi (meaning elder sister in Bengali).

• In 2011, she pulled off a landslide victory for the TMC Congress alliance in West Bengal by defeating the 34-year-old Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Front government, the world's longest-serving democratically-elected communist government.

• Earlier, she has served as the Minister of Railways twice and is also the first woman Railway Minister of India

• She opposed forceful land acquisition for industrialisation by the communist government in West Bengal for Special Economic Zones at the cost of agriculturalists and farmers.

• In 2012, Time magazine named her one of the 100 most influential People in the World.

• In September 2012 Bloomberg Markets magazine listed her among the 50 most influential people in the world of finance.

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