Thefastmail, Kolkata :Buoyant with a massive victory, and her return to power in West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee will take oath as the Chief Minister on next Friday amid a huge public gathering. The oath taking ceremony will be held at the Republic Day parade venue in central Kolkata, the Red Road. Some of her cabinet colleagues are also likely to take part in the swear-in by the Governor, K.N. Tripathi.A meeting of all the newly elected TMC MLAs has been convened today to elect the party leader in the House. Ms. Banerjee will stake the claim to form the State government later in the day. The Election Commission sources have meanwhile informed the highest ever number of people, in all, over 8 lakh 30 thousand, opted for NOTA option in the West Bengal Assembly elections.Humble in her resounding victory, bagging 211 of the total 294 seats, Ms. Banerjee has said the opposition parties during the electioneering surpassed all the decent limits of protocol against her and TMC and Ma Mati Manush have given the due verdict. The Congress has emerged the largest opposition party with 44 seats in the new assembly, relegating the CPM to third place with only 26 seats. Ms. Banerjee said that Congress has lost every chance to stand with TMC by siding with Left parties during the elections.She, however, has clarified that TMC will provide issue based support to the BJP in spite of the ideological differences. CPM State Secretary Dr. Surjya Kanta Misra has reacted to the results saying that his party’s efforts to unite all the democratic secular forces will continue. He agreed that the CPIM failed to feel the pulse of people prior to the voting. He repeated the charge of a tacit understanding between the BJP and TMC during the votes.
