Suvendu Adhikari Picked For CM: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is set to begin a new era of West Bengal politics, as for the first time, the saffron party is forming a government in the cultural capital of India.
Adhikari, a former aide of Mamata Banerjee and a BJP leader, has been given the leading role in the new government. On Friday, Adhikari was elected the leader of the BJP legislature party in West Bengal, paving the way for him to become the first BJP chief minister of the state.
Long Association With Mamata And Bitter Separation
Adhikari, who began his political career with Congress and was elected a councillor in Kanthi municipality in 1995, joined Mamata's Trinamool Congress in 1998, a newly born party. Mamata, who also parted ways with Congress, founded her party in January 1998. Which means Mamata and Adhikari, both, were associated in the early stages of their political career. In 2006, Adhikari won the Contai South assembly seat on the TMC ticket. He rose as a key TMC leader, playing a major role in the 2006-07 Singur and Nandigram movements that helped TMC gain power in West Bengal in 2011. With time, Suvendu rose ranks and files and became a key strategist of Mamata. His role in the Nandigram movement was decisive, and still, people in the TMC silently recognise his contribution. As his influence within the party grew, he was seen as an heir of Mamata, but things did not go well a few years after TMC came to power in the state. In 2020, the power struggles began in the party with Mamata's nephew Abhishek Banerjee's rise. Abhishek was being projected as the party's rising face and heir-apparent, which made Adhikari uncomfortable in the ruling party. Subsequently, he left TMC in December 2020 and later joined the BJP.
How Nandigram Movement Catapulated His Career
Till the Singur Movement in 2006, an agitation against the West Bengal government's acquisition of roughly 1,000 acres of fertile, multi-crop land for Tata Motors' Tata Nano project, Mamata-led TMC succeeded in seeding anti-government sentiment among people, especially among farmers. Next year, when a similar issue cropped up in the state, Mamata deployed his heavyweight leader Adhikari in Nandigram, a home turf of the then TMC leader. She knew this was the moment to shift the electoral ground from the left to her party. Making no mistake, she gave the key responsibility to the local boy, Adhikari. Adhikari stood tall against the mighty Left's cadres and spearheaded a movement against the government's proposals to establish a Special Economic Zone (SEZ) for Indonesia's Salim Group of Industries, which involved land acquisition in Nandigram, East Midnapore.
The movement took a violent turn in which dozens of people lost their lives. Adhikari led the anti-government protests and created a political atmosphere in favour of the TMC, which bore fruit in the next election, and Mamata's party stormed to power in the 2011 assembly elections by winning 184 seats. Adhikari was credited with the landslide victory along with party chief Mamata.