Hasirani Rath and Sakharav Sarkar, the Bharatiya Janata Party candidates who won the Nandigram and Rejinagar by-elections earlier this month, were sworn in as members of the West Bengal Legislative Assembly in Kolkata on Wednesday. Speaker Rathindra Bose administered the oath, Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari was present in the House, and Leader of the Opposition Ritabrata Banerjee congratulated the new members.

Source: IANS via Hi India

The by-elections were held on October 6 and the results declared on October 9. Rath won Nandigram in East Medinipur district by a record margin of 1,22,753 votes, while Sarkar won Rejinagar in Murshidabad district by 75,816 votes. With both seats, the BJP's strength in the 294-member Assembly has risen to 209.

Source: Nation Press

Addressing the Assembly after the swearing-in, Adhikari said the BJP had begun earning the confidence of minority voters and credited welfare delivery rather than religious identity politics. He told the House that 70,000 women in Rejinagar are benefiting from the Annapurna Yojana, of whom 35,000 are from minority families, and pointed out that 200 of Rejinagar's 300 polling booths are minority-dominated.

"Earlier, many played politics by describing the BJP as a communal party," Adhikari said, according to the report of his Assembly remarks. "We are traditional Hindus and sport tilaks on our foreheads. But BJP prioritises 'public necessity' while running the administration," he said. He described his government's first six months as only "morning tea and snacks", with the "lunch and dinner" of delivery still ahead.

The Chief Minister also explained his own seat choice, saying he had retained Bhabanipur — where he defeated former Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee — and vacated Nandigram so that Banerjee could not use the resulting by-election to re-enter the Assembly from that seat. He added that Banerjee should now take a rest instead of continuing to contest elections, a remark the Trinamool Congress is expected to answer politically.