The making of Suvendu Adhikari, Bengal’s new CM: Organiser par excellence who brought down the TMC fortress

He displayed an early talent for organising and leadership and two years after Mamata formed the TMC in 1998, he, along with his father and brothers, joined the party. This immediately provided the TMC with the presence it required to challenge the CPI(M) party machinery in Purba Medinipur district, where the Adhikaris had been involved in politics for decades.

With Suvendu’s organising skills, the party slowly built itself up in the region and took on the dominance of then CPI(M) strongman and former Tamluk MP Lakshman Seth. When the Nandigram agitation began in March 2007, a year after Singur, the TMC could take the lead in the anti-land acquisition protests because of Suvendu, who marshalled the party cadre in the area.

At the time, the CPI (Maoist) was also involved in the agitation, looking to make its organisational expansion in the area, and had links to TMC leaders and members of the Bhumi Ucched Pratirodh Committee (BUPC). The BUPC, or the Committee against Land Evictions, was a coalition of locals and parties that had come together to create momentum against the acquisition of land for a Special Economic Zone and behind the scenes, the man who led it was Suvendu, then a young, first-time MLA.

Apart from his organisational skills, which many in the TMC acknowledged when he left the party over a decade later, his straightforward speeches with a rural Bengali accent and streetfighter image — a lot in the mould of Mamata Banerjee — helped him create a following.

A shrewd tactician, Suvendu used the Nandigram movement as a springboard for both the party and himself, consolidating power for himself and playing a key role in the party in Purba Medinipur, Paschim Medinipur, Bankura, and Purulia, going all the way up to Malda and Murshidabad. Though initially seen as a local strongman, he eventually created a base well outside of Purba Medinipur.

His political rise led him to Delhi after he defeated his old rival, Lakshman Seth, from Tamluk in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections. He retained the seat again in 2014, even as the Congress-led UPA was voted out of power and the BJP took charge of the government. Following Mukul Roy’s exit from the TMC in 2017, Suvendu became one of the chief strategists of the party, bringing both muscle and political shrewdness to the table. However, his drift away from Mamata and the TMC started when the TMC chief began preparing her nephew Abhishek Banerjee as her second-in-command, a position Suvendu had held by default till then.

The transport minister in the second Mamata government, Suvendu left the party in a surprise move in 2020, later raising the slogan, “tolabaj bhaipo hatao [kick out the extortionist nephew]”. This slogan, raised at a public meeting in Paschim Medinipur district, led Mamata to label the Adhikari family “Mir Jafars (traitors)”. The TMC chief also berated herself by calling herself a “big donkey (boro gadha)” for having failed to recognise their “true face” sooner.

However, Suvendu’s loss was keenly felt as Mamata lost to him in Nandigram in the 2021 elections and the TMC lost its strong grip on Purba Medinipur.

Defeating Mamata in Nandigram in the 2021 polls and then again in Bhabanipur this time has turned him into a star among the BJP rank and file. After 2021, as Leader of the Opposition, his tough stand amidst the overwhelming majority of the Trinamool Congress raised his stock within the party.

What will be on his agenda?

Now, as he takes charge, the Suvendu Adhikari government will face a host of challenges, from law-and-order to dealing with poor civic infrastructure and fixing the state’s finances, a situation that had already been strained because of run-ins between the Centre and the Mamata Banerjee government. First up, the new government’s top priority will be to re-establish law and order and put an end to sporadic incidents of political violence over the past few days.

Suvendu’s personal assistant Chandranath Rath was shot dead near Kolkata on Wednesday night and the challenge will be to ensure a speedy investigation to quickly catch the killers, and ensure the situation does not spiral out of control as it did in 2021, when BJP workers faced large-scale post-poll violence after the TMC’s victory.

The new government has to also fulfil, among other things, the BJP’s promise of a monthly financial assistance of Rs 3,000 to women that was announced as a counter to Mamata Banerjee’s Lakshmir Bhandar, under which women used to get Rs 1,500 (women from SC and ST communities get Rs 1,700).

The BJP has also promised a monthly assistance of Rs 3,000 to unemployed youth (twice the amount the TMC has promised to pay), and figure out how to provide 1 crore new jobs and self-employment opportunities in the next five years to prevent large-scale migration.

The new BJP government will also look to implement the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) and tackle undocumented immigration across the Bangladesh border. The BJP has also promised that within 45 days of the government taking over, it will implement the 7th Pay Commission recommendations and clear pending Dearness Allowance (DA) arrears. According to the state government affidavit to court, it will cost an extra Rs 42,000 crore.