West Bengal elections: Lieutenant to conqueror – the rise and rise of Suvendu Adhikari

Suvendu helped decimate the party his father helped form

KOLKATA: BJP’s massive victory in the West Bengal polls came despite not having a st-ate face. Yet, the spotlight automatically turned to Suvendu Adhikari, Mamata Banerjee’s lieutenant-turned-bete noire who boarded a flight to Delhi as saffron celebrations broke out across the state.Suvendu, who retained Nandigram and pulled off the biggest upset of the polls defe-ating Mamata in Bhabanipur, symbolised BJP’s aggressive campaign that sought to box the CM in on “Trinamool goondas” and “politics of Muslim appeasement”, ultimately helping decimate the party his father, Sisir Adhikari, had helped form.Asked by reporters on Monday evening whether he was BJP’s CM candidate, Adhikari responded by saying, “There is no change in me… I am not power-hungry.”Suvendu began his political career with Congress, elected a councillor in Kanthi municipality in 1995. He joined Trinamool Congress in 1998 and won the Contai South assembly seat in 2006.His rise came during the 2007 land agitation against Left Front govt’s proposed chemical hub in Nandigram. Suvendu was one of the key organisers of the movement whose momentum propelled TMC to office, unseating Left Front after 34 years. He entered national politics in 2009 with a win in Tamluk, which he retained in 2014. In 2016, Suvendu returned to state politics, winning the Nandigram polls on a Trinamool ticket, and joined Mamata’s cabinet.His break with TMC came in Dec 2020 when, amid growing differences with the party, Suvendu joined BJP.After defeating Mamata in Nandigram in 2021 , he became Bengal’s leader of opposition. In his new role, he trained his guns on Bangladeshis and Rohingya and lau-ded “nationalist Muslims”.As someone who had not been part of RSS or BJP’s ideological traditions, Suvendu’s jersey switch was viewed with caution by netas in the saffron party. However, his admission that he wasn’t an “insider” but was “no less devoted to the party”, and his seamless equation with BJP president Samik Bhattacharya helped bridge gaps.For the last five years, Suvendu’s political pitch focused on corruption, misgovernance, lack of jobs, brain drain – and also Hindutva. On Monday, he said, “All Hindus are united in favour of Narendra Modi… Hindu EVMs mean BJP, Muslim EVMs mean TMC…”