Mamata Banerjee was on Friday sworn in as the chief minister of West Bengal for the second consecutive time, heading a 42-member ministry.

61-year-old Banerjee was administered oath of office and secrecy by state governor Keshri Nath Tripathi at the sprawling Red Road.

Her ministry has 18 new faces.

The 18 new faces in the council of ministers are Suvendu Adhikari, Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay, Churamoni Mahato, Tapan Dasgupta, Asima Patra, Indranil Sen, Laxmi Ratan Shukla, Shyamal Santra, Golam Rabbani, Siddikullah Chowdhury, Abdur Rezzak Mollah, Jakir Hossain, James Kujur, Rabindra Nath Ghosh, Sandhyarani Tudu, Abani Joardar, Bachchu Hansda and Sovan Chatterjee, who is also the Mayor of Kolkata.

Among those who graced the occasion were Bhutan Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay, Bangladesh Industry Minister Amir Hossain Amu, union ministers Arun Jaitley and Babul Supriyo, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav and Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad.

Thousands of supporters braving the intense heat assembled under the open sky to watch Didi (in Bengali elder sister, as Banerjee is fondly called) take oath, as she begins her second innings at the helm of the eastern state.

Banerjee first took over as chief minister on May 20, 2011, when she led an alliance of the Trinamool Congress, Congress and Socialist Unity Centre of India-Communist to a huge win in the state assembly polls, bringing to an end 34 years of uninterrupted Left Front rule.

In the recent assembly elections, Banerjee led the Trinamool to a landslide victory, with the party winning 211 seats -- well above the two-thirds majority mark of 196 -- to sweep back to power.

The Congress-Left Front alliance won only 77 seats in the 294-member house. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha managed to get three seats each as Banerjee's juggernaut rolled on.