Mamata Banerjee to take oath as Bhabanipur MLA in West Bengal legislative assembly today

KOLKATA: Trinamool Congress (TMC) chief Mamata Banerjee will take oath as a member of the West Bengal Assembly on Thursday days after she won the keenly contested Bhabanipur bypoll.

Two other newly-elected Trinamool Congress legislators will also take oath at along with her. The oath ceremony will be held at 2 PM, according to a Twitter post from West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar.

On October 5, the Governor had said that the oath-taking ceremony was supposed to be held initially at 11.45 am, but the timing was changed following a request of state Parliamentary Affairs Minister Partha Chatterjee.

“Governor WB Shri Jagdeep Dhankhar would administer oath/affirmation to the elected members to the WBLA, viz., Mamata Banerjee Jakir Hossian and Amirul Islam at the premises of the West Bengal Legislative Assembly on October 7, 2021 at 11.45 hours,” he had tweeted.

According to the Election Commission of India, Mamata Banerjee secured 85,263 votes which are around 71.90 per cent of the total votes polled in the by-election.

Banerjee's rival from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Priyanka Tibrewal got 26,428 votes and Communist Party of India CPI candidate Srijib Biswas secured 4,226 votes.

Jakir Hossain was declared victorious by a huge margin of 92,480 votes from the Jangipur constituency, while Amirul Islam won from Samserganj by a margin of 26,379 votes. 

The results were declared on Sunday. The polling was held in all three constituencies on September 30.

According to the convention, it is the assembly speaker who administers the oath to legislators while the governor administers oath of office to ministers. But, Dhankar withdrew speaker Biman Banerjee's power to administer the oath few days before the September 30 by-polls.