Kolkata: After the swearing-in ceremony on Saturday, the first BJP chief minister of Bengal will make a symbolic trip to Writers’ Buildings, which has served as the seat of power for over 200 years, before heading to Vidhan Sabha, where he will operate from the CM’s chamber until the old secretariat building is ready.
the new CM, who will be chosen in a meeting chaired by Union home minister Amit Shah on Friday, will temporarily assume office on the second floor of the main block in a room just above the former CM secretariat on the first floor While the first floor of the Writers’ main block used to house the Prime Minister of undivided Bengal before Independence and the chief minister thereafter before Mamata Banerjee shifted the secretariat across the river to Nabanna in Oct 2013. “The restoration and renovation of the Writers’ Buildings have been hanging in balance for over 10 years. After the visit is over, the furniture will be shipped out and partitions, ACs and lights dismantled so that the remaining work can be completed.
Another large room is being readied on the same floor,” said a contractor, engaged in the project. “The room will be done up according to the CM’s preference thereafter,” a PWD official said. During the Buddhadeb Bhattacharya govt, the second-floor hall was partitioned into three rooms that housed fisheries minister Kiranmoy Nanda and the transport and information & cultural affairs secretary. Later, when Mamata Banerjee briefly functioned from the Writers’, Nanda’s room was allocated to Aroop Biswas, who was then the youth services and housing minister. One cannot do it in five days. What we are doing instead is creating a kind of film set or a puja pandal: make the chamber presentable for the CM’s symbolic visit. Partitions are being installed to create a CM’s chamber and an antechamber in addition to the CM’s secretariat.