It was 2007. A young man in a simple kurta stood in the dust of Nandigram, speaking into a handheld microphone. At his side stood Trinamool Congress supremoMamata Banerjee. Back then, Suvendu Adhikari was the engine of her revolution. Today, he sits in the leader’s chair at the state secretariat, having dismantled the very political machine he helped build.
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Adhikari was elected on Friday as theBharatiya Janata Party (BJP) legislature party leader in West Bengal. He will take oath as the first BJP chief minister of the state on Saturday at the Brigade Parade Ground.
This follows a high-stakes election where the BJP won 208 of the state’s 294 seats, effectively ending 15 years of TMC era.
Adhikari’s path to the CM seat
The path to the secretariat started on April 2, when Adhikari filed his nomination for Kolkata’sBhabanipur seat. During a roadshow, Union home minister Amit Shah recalled that while Adhikari originally wanted to contest only Nandigram, the party asked him to take the fight to Bhabanipur to defeat Mamata Banerjee in her home turf. Shah predicted that a victory in Bhabanipur would ensure a state-wide win.
By the evening of May 4 the numbers vindicated this strategy. Adhikari defeated Banerjee by 15,000 votes, as per Election Commission data.
Five facts on Suvendu Adhikari
- Born on December 15, 1970, in Purba Medinipur, Suvendu is the son of veteran leader Sisir Kumar Adhikari. He began his legislative career in 2006 and served two terms in the Lok Sabha before joining the state cabinet in 2016.
2. For years, he was known as an “all-weather, all-terrain” asset for the TMC. He was the architect who expanded the party’s base into the Left-dominated Jangalmahal and later dismantled Congress strongholds in Malda and Murshidabad. Recognising his influence,Mamata Banerjee appointed him as the state’s transport minister.
3. His political career has not been without controversy; he was interrogated by the CBI in 2014 regarding the Saradha Ponzi scheme and was linked to the 2014 Narada sting operation. He has dismissed such allegations as politically motivated.
4. Later, Adhikari resigned from the TMC government and the assembly in December 2020 to join the BJP. His defection was linked to growing rivalry with the party leadership. In the 2021 state polls, he defeated his former mentor in Nandigram by 1,956 votes. Although the TMC retained the state then, that victory made Adhikari the leader of the Opposition. Over the next few years, despite facing roughly 300 criminal cases, 15 of which were quashed by the High Court in 2025, he continued to lead aggressive campaigns across the state.
5.Suvendu Adhikari holds a Master of Arts from Rabindra Bharati University. He served as chairman of the Contai Co-operative Bank and the Vidyasagar Central co-operative Bank. He was removed from his posts following his shift to the BJP. He is a sports enthusiast with a particular interest in football and cricket.
The 2026 election strategy
In the 2026 elections, Adhikari contested from both Nandigram and Bhabanipur. Throughout the campaign, he shifted the party’s focus towards Hindu consolidation, specifically targeting 70.54% of the population and addressing concerns regarding demographic changes and infiltration.
The BJP secured leads even in districts with high Muslim populations like Malda and Murshidabad, as per EC data.
