The Chief Minister and select members of the Council of Ministers of the first Bharatiya Janata Party government in West Bengal will be sworn in on Saturday (May 9, 2026).
The day is considered auspicious as per the Bengali calendar and is celebrated all across the State as ‘Pachise Baishak’ (25th day of the Bengali month of Baishak) as it marks the birth anniversary of Rabindranath Tagore.
West Bengal BJP president Samik Bhattacharya told media persons that a meeting of BJP legislators-elect will be held on Friday and the next day the BJP government will be sworn in.
“The meeting of BJP legislators-elect will be held on May 8 at 4 p.m. The new BJP government will take oath on May 9 at 10 a.m. at Brigade Parade Ground,” Mr. Bhattacharya announced on Wednesday (May 6). He said Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah and several Chief Ministers from BJP and NDA-ruled States are expected to be present during the ceremony. Mr. Bhattacharya also visited the State Secretariat, Nabanna, and discussed arrangements for the swearing-in with the Chief Secretary.
With the BJP securing 207 of the 293 Assembly seats that went to polls, all eyes are on who is going to be the Chief Minister.
BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari, who defeated Trinamool Congress chairperson Mamata Banerjee in Bhabanipur, described himself as a “disciplined worker of the party and will do whatever the party leadership directs him to”. Mr. Adhikari said the party would take a call on which of the two seats he won—Bhabanipur or Nandigram— he would retain.
Alongside speculation over the post of the Chief Minister, there are talks in the party on ministerial berths. Senior BJP leader Dilip Ghosh, former Rajya Sabha MP Swapan Dasgupta, Siliguri MLA Sankar Ghosh, prominent woman face Agnimitra Pal, and the party’s senior-most leader Tapas Roy are among the top contenders for the post of Ministers.
Meanwhile, newly elected Trinamool Congress members held a meeting at party supremo Mamata Banerjee’s residence, with senior-most party leader Sovandeb Chattopadhyay likely to be appointed the Leader of Opposition.
During the day, West Bengal Chief Electoral Officer Manoj Kumar Agarwal met Governor R.N. Ravi at Lok Bhavan to complete the statutory formalities of handing over the gazette notification containing names of elected members of the new Assembly.
Additional security removed from Mamata, Abhishek’s residence
In a separate development, additional police deployment and area security arrangements outside the residence of Mamata Banerjee and Abhishek Banerjee at Harish Chatterjee Street and Harish Mukherjee Road respectively, were withdrawn following a review, though their existing security categorisation remains unchanged.
Senior officials of the Kolkata Police and the West Bengal police said that both Mamata Banerjee and Abhishek Banerjee would continue to get police protection.
“In accordance with the ‘Yellow Book’ protocol, the former Chief Minister will be accorded Z-Plus category security,” West Bengal Director General of Police Siddh Nath Gupta said.