New Delhi, March 31 The West Bengal Assembly elections scheduled for late April are no longer just a political contest. They have become a direct battle for identity and power between Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly, Suvendu Adhikari. The Bhawanipur Assembly seat is at the center of this battle.
In 2021, this politics became even more personal when Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee challenged her former ally, Suvendu Adhikari, in his stronghold of Nandigram.
Many Trinamool Congress supporters saw this as an attempt to teach Suvendu Adhikari a lesson for leaving the party. But this decision did not prove to be a good one for Mamata Banerjee.
Mamata Banerjee lost in Nandigram by about 2,000 votes, although her party, the Trinamool Congress, won a landslide victory across the state, winning 215 of the 294 seats.
Mamata Banerjee relied on her political acumen, but she overlooked that Suvendu Adhikari played a key role in instigating and strengthening the 2007 Nandigram movement.
This movement was a major factor in the ouster of the Left Front government from power in 2011. The Adhikari family has long held political influence in the East Medinipur district. His father, Shishir Adhikari, was elected as a Trinamool Congress MP from the Kanthi Lok Sabha seat three times in a row (2009, 2014, and 2019).
Due to old age and health issues, he did not contest the 2024 elections. The seat subsequently passed to his son, Soumendu Adhikari, who won as a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate.
Incidentally, the BJP won four of the seven assembly seats falling under this Lok Sabha constituency in the 2021 state elections.
After Suvendu Adhikari’s separation, the family severed all ties with the Trinamool Congress. Meanwhile, BJP candidate Abhijit Gangopadhyay won the Tamluk Lok Sabha seat.
On the other hand, for Mamata Banerjee, it was a by-election from her “para” (area) Bhawanipur, which gave her the opportunity to become the Chief Minister of West Bengal for the third consecutive time.
Now, her former aide, Suvendu Adhikari, has brought the electoral battle directly to her stronghold. However, Suvendu Adhikari has also filed his nomination from Nandigram. Thus, he has kept his options open for entering the Assembly. His confidence has certainly raised some concerns within the Trinamool Congress camp.
Several senior Trinamool Congress leaders are camping in Bhawanipur and campaigning in support of their leader, while Mamata Banerjee herself is touring the entire state. Suvendu Adhikari is confident of his victory for several reasons. First, he says that if the Election Commission conducts a “Special Intensive Revision” (SIR) of the voter list, many Trinamool Congress votes could be deleted. He alleges that some of these voters are “fake” or “illegal immigrants.”
He is also banking on an “anti-incumbency wave.” According to him, law and order problems in the state—such as the rape and murder of a medical intern at RG Kar Hospital, political violence, and investigations by central agencies against Trinamool leaders—have fueled public anger.
