Question

Who became the Chief Minister of West Bengal after the 2011 assembly election?
A. Jyoti Basu
B. Mamta Banerjee
C. Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee
D. None of these

Answer 1

Hint In the 2001 assembly elections, the alliance of the All India Trinamool Congress and the Indian national congress won with a huge margin which resulted at the end of thirty-four years of Communist rule in West Bengal.

Complete step by step solution
Trinamool Congress (TMC) was founded by Mamta Banerjee in 1998 as a result of separation from the Indian National Congress, and she became its first chairperson. She is often referred to as didi, which means elder sister in Bengali. Being the leader of the Trinamool Congress, she became the chief minister of West Bengal following the victory in the assembly elections. She is still the chief minister of West Bengal in her second term after winning the elections again in 2016. She is the first woman to have held the chief minister’s office.

Thus, the correct answer is B.

Note In 2011, the All India Trinamool Congress along with the INC won the West Bengal legislative assembly election against the Left Alliance securing 227 seats. TMC won 184 seats whereas the INC won 42 seats thus providing enough seats for the majority. This led to the end of the rule of the longest-ruling Communist party in the world which is democratically elected. She introduced various reforms in the sectors of education and health. Some of the important reforms occurring in the education sector included the release of all the teachers' monthly payments on the first date of every month and quicker pensions for the retiring teachers. In the health sector, she promised a three-phase developmental system that would be taken up in order to improve the health infrastructure and services in the state.