In a major expansion, a total of nine new ministers, including former BJP MP Babul Supriyo, took oath as ministers in the Mamata Banerjee-led West Bengal Cabinet on Wednesday.

Apart from Supriyo, the other MLAs who were sworn in as minister include Snehasis Chakraborty, Partha Bhowmick, Udayan Guha, Pradip Mazumder, Tajmul Hossain, Satyajit Barman Birbaha Hansda, and Biplab Roy Chowdhury.

It may be mentioned that Supriyo had defected from the BJP and switched to the TMC after being dropped from the Union Cabinet in 2021. Currently, he is the TMC MLA from the Ballygunge constituency.

The development comes after former state education minister Partha Chatterjee was arrested by Enforcement Directorate (ED) in the SSC recruitment scam case.

Chatterjee was minister-in-charge of the departments of industry, commerce and enterprises, IT and electronics, parliamentary affairs and public enterprises, and industrial reconstruction.

Following his arrest, CM Banerjee took charge of four of Partha Chatterjee’s department, besides 11 others which she already is in charge of.