Kolkata, May 11(IANS) The new government led by Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari will be a “West Bengal government” in the true sense and not a “Bharatiya Janata Party government”, BJP’s West Bengal president and Rajya Sabha MP Samik Bhattacharya said here on Monday.

Speaking to media persons while the Chief Minister stood beside him, Bhattacharya said the state government would function independently, with coordination with the party limited to ensuring the smooth implementation of commitments made in the pre-election Sankalp Patra (manifesto).

“The state government will function in its own way. The connection between the state government and the party will ensure the smooth implementation of the promises made in the pre-election Sankalp Patra. The new government will be the ‘West Bengal Government’ and not a ‘BJP government’. That is our promise,” Bhattacharya told media persons.

CM Adhikari, along with Bhattacharya, arrived at the BJP’s state headquarters at Salt Lake in the northern outskirts of Kolkata on Monday morning to attend an organisational meeting.

After the meeting, Adhikari went to the current state secretariat of Nabanna at Mandirtala on the northern outskirts of Kolkata, where he will chair the first meeting of the new cabinet he heads.

After the first cabinet meeting, he will chair three separate organisational meetings with the top bureaucrats and police officers of the state.

Before leaving for the state secretariat, both Adhikari and Bhattacharya appeared before the media for a brief interaction at the party’s state headquarters, where Bhattacharya promised that the new government would run in an unbiased manner.

Adhikari was given the “Guard of Honour” at the gate of the state secretariat. However, the new cabinet will operate from Nabanna temporarily and will soon be shifted to the original state secretariat of Writers’ Buildings in central Kolkata.

Adhikari has also promised that he will govern the new administration based on collective leadership, and he will never force his decision on other cabinet colleagues like his predecessor, Mamata Banerjee did.

“I will not run the new government. Rather, we will run the new state government collectively,” Adhikari said.

–IANS

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