Mamata Banerjee to take oath as West Bengal CM for third term on May 5

Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo Mamata Banerjee, whose party secured a dominant win in the recently held assembly elections in West Bengal, will take oath as the chief minister for a third term on May 5, senior TMC leader and minister Partha Chatterjee announced on Monday.

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Banerjee is scheduled to meet West Bengal governor Jagdeep Dhankhar to stake claim to form the government, as announced by Dhankhar on Sunday as votes were counted for assembly elections in four states, including West Bengal, and the Union territory of Puducherry.

"Congratulated @MamataOfficial's party's win in West Bengal assembly elections. Tomorrow at 7pm, the honourable CM will be calling on me at Raj Bhawan," the governor tweeted on Sunday evening.

The TMC chief, though, lost from the assembly constituency of Nandigram, from where she pitted herself against her former aide, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Suvendu Adhikari. After a close contest, which went down to the wire, Adhikari eventually won by 1,956 votes, as per the Election Commission of India (ECI) website. Banerjee later said she will challenge the result in the Supreme Court even as the ECI rejected the TMC’s petition demanding a recounting in Nandigram.

Overall, the TMC won 213 of the state’s 294 assembly constituencies, with the BJP winning 77. Counting was held for 292 seats, as voting for two seats will take place at a later date. The polling for the assembly elections took place in an unprecedented eight phases, between March 27 and April 29.

Banerjee became the chief minister of the eastern state for the first time in 2011 when the TMC unseated the Left front which had been in power continuously for 34 years. Five years later, she successfully won a re-election, repeating the feat.