Months after the Singur agitation began in 2006 and the Trinamool Congress (TMC) sensed that the ground beneath the Left Front government’s feet had started shifting, the party found itself in the middle of another agitation, this time in Nandigram in Purba Medinipur district. Here, as the TMC took on the might of the Left and its armed gangs, one party leader stood by Mamata Banerjee and helped marshal the party’s forces and the villagers.
On Monday, Suvendu Adhikari, seen as a potential heir to the TMC before their bitter fallout over five years ago, stood vindicated as he defeated the TMC chairperson for the second straight election. This time, from the south Kolkata constituency of Bhabanipur, on Mamata’s home turf, five years since besting her in Nandigram itself. Over 18 years since the anti-land acquisition agitation, Suvendu was again at the thick of things as another ruling party discovered that the ground underneath its feet had vanished. Given the two victories he has notched up against Mamata and retaining Nandigram as well, Suvendu will likely be among the contenders for the top job.
One of veteran Congress leader and then TMC MP Sisir Adhikari’s three sons — apart from Suvendu, Dibyendu, and the youngest, Soumendu, are also in politics — Suvendu showed signs of his ability for political organisation from an early age. He started his career in student politics with the Congress at the height of the Left’s powers and, along with his father, joined the TMC around 2000, two years after Banerjee formed the party.
The Adhikaris have been influential figures in Medinipur politics for decades, with their base in their hometown of Contai. Over the last two decades, the Adhikari family has dominated the politics of Purba Medinipur and surrounding districts, repeatedly winning Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha seats in the area. They helped build a solid base for the TMC, with Suvendu’s organisational muscle helping the party win elections in several seats.
Getting the father and son duo over to her side helped Mamata add heft to the TMC’s grassroots presence in the region, cutting down to size the CPI(M)’s strongman Lakhsman Seth, a former Tamluk MP, who was one of the TMC’s primary antagonists during the Nandigram agitation. It was Suvendu who played a key role in the resistance put up by the protesters in Nandigram, adding discipline to the TMC’s rank and file.
Suvendu was an MLA by then, having entered the Assembly in 2006. And then, as the influence of the CPI(M) waned, he defeated Seth from the Tamluk Lok Sabha seat in 2009 and retained it in 2014. In 2016, he quit Parliament to become a minister in the second Mamata Banerjee government. His quick rise was due to his proximity to Mamata, who valued the qualities he brought to the party.
Suvendu rapidly strengthened the TMC’s party organisation and increased his own clout beyond Purba Medinipur, extending his sphere of influence in the Jangalmahal districts of Bankura, Purulia, and Paschim Medinipur. Mamata entrusted him with the responsibility of being the TMC’s observer in many parts of the state, primarily in Jangalmahal, Malda, and Murshidabad and his influence in the party organisation in South Bengal, especially in the Haldia port area, and among the trade unions in the Haldia industrial area, solidified.
However, when Mamata chose to appoint her nephew Abhishek Banerjee her second-in-command, a position Adhikari held by default, it irked him and he distanced himself from the TMC chief. In 2021, in a surprise move, Suvendu, then the state transport minister, moved to the BJP. He even raised the slogan, “tolabaj bhaipo hatao [kick out the extortionist nephew]” at a public meeting in Paschim Medinipur district, leading Mamata to label the Adhikari family as one of “Mir Jafars. The TMC chief also berated herself by calling herself a “big donkey (boro gadha)” for having failed to recognise their “true face” sooner.
In 2021, following the BJP’s loss at the hands of the TMC, the party faced post-poll violence in which its organisational network in several districts, especially in south Bengal, was decimated. While many expected Adhikari to move back to the TMC at the time, he stayed put and travelled from one district to another to stand by BJP workers. This is something that endeared him to the party’s workers. “I will never go to TMC. I will make Mamata Banerjee a former Chief Minister of Bengal and will oust the TMC private limited,” he is learnt to have told one of his associates at the time.
“Like Himanta Biswa Sharma, Suvendu has become the face of the BJP (he was appointed LoP). It is difficult to see Suvendu not becoming the CM after this huge win, because he is the one who stood tall after the 2021 defeat. One after another, he put together the bricks and reassembled the BJP in the state. Obviously, the central leadership helped him, but it is also true that, without an Adhikari-like face, it would not have been possible to oust Mamata Banerjee,” said a senior BJP leader.
