Suvendu Adhikari, the protégé who turned Mamata Banerjee’s nemesis, will on Saturday be sworn in as Bengal’s ninth chief minister and the BJP’s first in the state.
Union home minister Amit Shah announced on Friday evening that the BJP’s 207 newly elected MLAs in Bengal had proposed no other name.
“Eight proposals were received. All of them contained only one name. Sufficient time was given for a second name. But none was received. Therefore, I am declaring Suvendu Adhikari as the chief minister,” Shah said at a ceremony where Suvendu was felicitated with a garland of lotuses.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Shah and a virtual who’s who of the saffron ecosystem will be at the Brigade Parade Grounds to watch the anointment of the man who had defeated Mamata on his turf Nandigram in 2021 and her own backyard Bhabanipur in 2026.
“I bow before the world’s greatest leader, Narendra Modi.... The BJP government will work to fulfil the guarantees given by Modiji.... We will talk less and work more,” Suvendu, 57, said shortly before staking his claim to form the government before governor R.N. Ravi.
“Let us rebuild Bengal on Modiji’s ideals, let the Centre and the state work together to fulfil the people’s expectations. As Shahji said, we have been able to overcome bhoy with bhorosha.”
He added: “Not 46 per cent (the BJP’s vote share), we must bring more than 60 per cent of the people to us in the next election by working positively, implementing the resolutions, fulfilling Modiji’s dream. We must bring mothers and sisters to our side. We must create a Sonar Bangla.”
Suvendu, who will be sworn in on Rabindranath Tagore’s birth anniversary, went on to quote several lines from the poet’s Chitto Jetha Bhoyshunyo.
Even a decade ago, the idea of a BJP chief minister in Bengal would have been deemed a pipedream.
Suvendu Adhikari casts vote in 2026 Bengal Assembly elections File photo
When Suvendu walked out of Trinamool and joined the BJP 1,966 days ago in December 2020, the idea still seemed unlikely. The BJP’s crushing defeat in the April-May 2021 polls appeared to merely underline the point.
On Friday evening, at a buzzing Biswa Bangla Convention Centre in New Town, Shah seemed to acknowledge the crossing of a difficult barrier.
“BJP governments have been formed everywhere from Gangotri to Gangasagar. A government following the ideals of Syama Prasad Mookerjee has been formed in his birthplace,” he said, lauding Suvendu for defeating Mamata in her citadel.
“You must make every effort to fulfil the hopes that the people have placed in you. Don’t let the trust be broken.... During the BJP’s rule, neither will the administration be politicised, nor will politics be criminalised,” he added.
“This is not about the expansion of our organisation or validation of ideology, but about mending the biggest hole in our nationalsecurity.”
Suvendu is the latest in a line of chief ministers that began with the Gandhian simplicity of Prafulla Chandra Ghosh and included the visionary leadership of Bidhan Chandra Roy, the record 23-year tenure of Marxist Jyoti Basu, the controversial stint of Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and the chequered 15-year legacy of Mamata.
In contrast to the Congress statesmen, Marxist bhadroloks and the mercurial street-fighter from Kalighat who came before him, Suvendu is expected to provide a Delhi-driven, unabashedly majoritarian style of administration.
He happens to be the first Bengal chief minister to come from the districts since Ajoy Mukherjee, also from East Midnapore, stepped down in 1971.
Suvendu can boast two giant-killing acts on his CV, having helped Mamata end the Left’s 34-year rule before turning against his mentor and toppling her, too.
For two decades, he had been one of Mamata’s primary enforcers, playing a key role on the ground during the anti-land-acquisition movement in Nandigram that became one of the principal drivers of her ascent to power.
Suvendu during the 2007 Nandigram movement File photo
He later “secured” district after district for Trinamool by engineering defections from the Left and the Congress – the party in which he had, like Mamata, cut his teeth in politics before switching to Trinamool in 2000.
Suvendu was prominently named in the Saradha ponzi scheme and Narada cash-for-favours scams of 2013-16, with the saffron camp labelling him a “chor” (thief). He began to be probed by the central agencies.
Then came the biggest blow: Mamata chose her nephew Abhishek Banerjee as her political heir, crushing the hopes of the ambitious protégé.
After Suvendu’s defection in 2020, Mamata alleged he had jumped into the BJP’s “washing machine” to escape the agencies, and Trinamool portrayed him as a “traitor”.
Suvendu, though, didn’t just change parties — he changed political universes, transforming from a secular politician into a fierce champion of Hindutva, ready to pit Bengal’s “30 per cent (Muslims) against 70 per cent (Hindus)”.
Even after his feats this election — retaining Nandigram and defeating Mamata in Bhabanipur — the path to the chief minister’s chair did not seem assured. The BJP leadership spent days weighing him against several others, notably, state unit chief Samik Bhattacharya.
Rajya Sabha member Bhattacharya is the BJP’s “palatable” face in Bengal — the man credited with successfully courting the fence-sitting Bengali Hindu electorate in just 10 months in his post, presenting a “moderate” and “Bengali bhadrolok” face before them.
According to some sources, one of the circumstances that helped tilt the scales decisively in Suvendu’s favour was the assassination of his personal assistant Chandranath Rath in Madhyamgram on Wednesday night.
The murder seemed to bestow on Suvendu, at one remove, the halo of martyrdom, vindicate his campaign against a “law-and-order collapse” in Bengal, and perhaps steered the BJP leadership towards picking a hardline, tough-talking functionary for the top job.