Suvendu Adhikari’s swearing in as Bengal chief minister highlights a defining feature of the BJP’s eastwards expansion under the Modi-Shah duopoly: the elevation of high-profile defectors, often at the cost of long-time ideological loyalists.
Just last month, the party installed as its first Bihar chief minister the 57-year-old Samrat Choudhary, another late entrant who had joined the BJP only in 2017 after stints in the RJD and the JDU.
In Assam, Himanta Biswa Sarma, who had crossed over from the Congress in 2015, is set to be sworn in for a second term as chief minister on May 12.
The trend underscores the hard-nosed, power-centric approach adopted by Narendra Modi and Amit Shah, prioritising winnability and regional clout over organisational loyalty, as they seek to expand the BJP’s influence across the eastern and northeastern states while tightening their grip over the party.
For instance, the BJP governments in Tripura and Arunachal Pradesh are headed by former Congress politicians. N. Biren Singh, who resigned as Manipur chief minister last year, too is a turncoat from the Congress.
Tripura chief minister Manik Saha rose rapidly through the ranks after joining the BJP in 2016, becoming state unit president in 2020 and, within two years, helming the state government.
His elevation came at the expense of party loyalist Biplab Kumar Deb, whom the central leadership asked to resign in May 2022.
Deb had spearheaded the BJP’s aggressive campaign against the firmly entrenched CPM-led government, ending 25 years of Left rule and becoming the party’s first chief minister in Tripura. He is now a Lok Sabha MP from Tripura West.
Arunachal is an even more dramatic case. Pema Khandu, now serving a third term as chief minister, was the Congress chief minister in 2016 when he led 43 of the party’s 44 MLAs into the People’s Party of Arunachal, an NDA ally. He split the outfit within months and merged with the BJP along with 32 legislators.
The move effectively converted a Congress bastion into a BJP stronghold in one sweep.
Modi and Shah have shown little hesitation in embracing defectors accused of serious corruption, attracting charges that the BJP was a “washing machine” that tainted Opposition politicians joined to escape prosecution.
The allegation resurfaced on Saturday as the BJP celebrated the elevation of Suvendu, who had dumped Trinamool for the saffron party in 2020.
Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Sanjay Raut accused the BJP of “rewarding corruption”, invoking the 2014 Narada “sting operation” that purportedly showed several Trinamool leaders — including Suvendu — accepting cash on camera.
Raut, speaking in Mumbai, cited how the BJP had aggressively weaponised the footage against Suvendu and Trinamool during the 2016 Bengal Assembly poll campaign.
Clips from the “sting”, alongside Modi’s campaign speeches from that period targeting Trinamool, have been circulating widely on social media, amplifying the Opposition’s attack.
“In 2016, the BJP used those videos to corner Trinamool…. Today, the same individual is chief minister, and the party is celebrating him. What morality is this?” Raut said.
Similar criticism had followed Samrat’s elevation in Bihar. Critics revived references to a 1995 murder case in which the FIR named Samrat and his father. Both spent time in jail as accused before being discharged for lack of evidence.
Political strategist-turned-politician Prashant Kishor had alleged during last year’s Bihar poll campaign that Samrat had once misrepresented his age to evade prosecution, an accusation the chief minister denies.
Despite the baggage, Samrat’s rise is seen widely as part of Shah’s “social engineering” efforts to consolidate non-Yadav OBC support in Bihar. As a Koiri leader, Samrat fits snugly into the BJP’s electoral calculus, although party veterans grumble in private about loyal OBC functionaries being overlooked.
Sarma’s trajectory in Assam follows a similar pattern. Once a powerful Congress minister whom the BJP frequently targeted with corruption charges, Sarma crossed over in 2015 and quickly emerged as the BJP’s principal strategist in the Northeast.
Shah is learnt to have privately described him as an “amazing” politician, crediting him with scripting the BJP’s rapid expansion in the region.
Sarma was appointed chief minister after the BJP’s second straight election win in Assam in 2021. He replaced the more ideologically rooted Sarbananda Sonowal.
Sarma has since then consolidated his unchallenged authority and led the party to a third consecutive victory — with a bigger margin — in last month’s Assam polls.