KOLKATA: Trinamool Congress chairperson Mamata Banerjee will be sworn in as the Chief Minister of Bengal for the third consecutive term on Wednesday. Banerjee has been unanimously elected as the leader of the legislative party of the Trinamool Congress. A meeting was held at Trinamool Bhavan on Monday afternoon where several of the MLAs who got elected were present. Trinamool Youth Congress president Abhishek Banerjee and poll strategist Prashant Kishor were also there. TMC has won in 213 Assembly segments out of 292 seats that had gone for polls in the staggering eight-phase high-voltage elections. The election in the remaining two seats Shamsherganj and Jangipur have been rescheduled after the demise of two candidates due to Covid. Partha Chatterjee, Trinamool Congress Secretary-General, said: "Today, the elected members of the state Assembly have voted for Mamata Banerjee as the leader of the TMCs legislative party. All the elected members have expressed their gratitude towards Banerjee for her fight for the state and the country." "She will be sworn-in as the Chief Minister on May 5 at Raj Bhavan. Another decision that has been taken in the meeting is that Biman Banerjee would be the Speaker again. Subrata Mukherjee, who got elected from Ballygunge, will be the pro-tem Speaker and would carry out the process of handing over the charge to the Speaker," Chatterjee said. Before swearing-in as Chief Minister for the third consecutive term on Wednesday, Banerjee called on Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar on Monday evening and submitted her resignation letter. "Congratulations @MamataOfficial for victory in the assembly polls and wished her a fruitful third term in office to serve the people of the State with dedication and commitment so that State regains past glory. Honble CM @MamataOfficial called on me and submitted her resignation as CM and the same has been accepted. She has been requested to continue till alternative arrangements are made," Dhankhar tweeted. MLAs will take the oath of secrecy at the state Assembly on May 6. Subsequently, the oath-taking ceremony of Cabinet members will be held. This time, the swearing-in ceremony will be held as a low-key affair, considering the Covid situation. Banerjee held the swearing-in ceremony after winning the 2016 Assembly polls in Red Road with chiefs of all political parties in the Opposition across the state pouring in to congratulate her. This time too, Banerjee will be hosting a brigade rally, once the Covid situation is over, in which senior leaders of all national political parties in the Opposition would be present. She said Shiv Sena president and Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh and superstar Rajinikanth had called her up to congratulate. Banerjee urged all the elected MLAs of her party to give priority to check the spread of Covid in their respective areas. She directed them to curb post-poll violence as well. MLAs, including Firhad Hakim, Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay, Debasish Kumar, Nirmal Maji, Tapas Roy, Kanchan Mullick, Aditi Munshi, Lovely Moitra and Raj Chakraborty stated that there was no time to talk about BJP now as the primary focus was to work for people, especially in this pandemic period.

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