The Street Fighter: Suvendu Adhikari’s Rise from Nandigram Strongman to West Bengal Chief Minister

For West Bengal’s new Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari, politics was always an exercise in establishing presence. From the streets of Kanthi to Writers’ Building, Adhikari’s trajectory, in all of its hail and haze, is one of political progression—of organisational pedigree, ground-level mobilisation, confrontational prominence and ultimately, feted recognition.

Hailing from Kanthi, in the coastal arc of Bengal’s Purba Medinipur district, Adhikari’s journey started in 1995, with a stint as a councillor on an Indian National Congress ticket. The son of seasoned Congressman and former Union Minister of State for Rural Development, Sisir Adhikari, Suvendu’s tether to the soil only tightened over the next few years as their family joined the Trinamool Congress (TMC) and established a political hold across the entire region.

Under the stewardship of Mamata Banerjee, the family gradually wrested the region—significant to maritime business—from the Left Front, with Adhikari establishing himself as a regional force to reckon with. First elected to the legislative Assembly in 2006 from Kanthi Dakshin, Suvendu’s political destiny made him shuttle between the Lok Sabha and the Vidhan Sabha over the next two decades. However, the Nandigram anti-land acquisition movement in 2007 made him a front-row presence in the TMC camp.

With Adhikari spearheading the violent agitation, the episode not only catapulted Mamata Banerjee to the fore but also became the centrepiece to Bengal’s political shuffle. Adhikari rose from being a regional strongman to a member of Mamata Banerjee’s closest circle. Donning the role of transport minister in his final years before jumping ship, Adhikari had built his political space, but shedding the blinding shadow of a figure like his political mentor, Mamata Banerjee, was still a daunting task.

When Adhikari joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the presence of Home Minister Amit Shah, there was an aftertaste of nipped aspirations. Despite Suvendu’s strategic involvement, when Banerjee’s then fledgling nephew Abhishek was poised as her assignee, Suvendu’s jump was unsurprising to many. While some hailed him as the guardian of Nandigram’s soil, others considered him a turncoat betrayer. But what remained undeniable was his relentless pursuit for recognition.

The dissatisfaction fed his raging desire, as Adhikari went on to controversially overcome his mentor in Nandigram in 2021 by a margin of 1,956 votes. As communal edges sharpened and ideological priorities morphed, Adhikari became another prominent face of the BJP’s aggressive brand of Hindutva across the Gangetic stretch, positioning him at the centre of the party’s plans in the state. Suvendu, forever comfortable in confrontation, proudly built on the bogey of religious polarisation over the years, promising to work only for Hindus, if voted to power. The trusted aide, who had grown into a feared adversary, had now evolved into an ideological counterforce.

A product of Bengal’s brand of politics in its hearty cocktail of violence, ideology, passion and scandals, Adhikari grew from being a promising participant to a crowd-pulling face. As the BJP brushed the TMC aside this time to form a saffron government, and one within the Centre’s fold, for the first time since Independence, an audacious Adhikari rewrote the very pages which once defined his doctrine.

Unseating the chief minister and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee for a second time in a row—this time, from her home constituency of Bhabanipur by over 15,000 votes, and securing Nandigram by a margin of over 9,000—Adhikari claimed the throne with audacity.

As he took oath as West Bengal’s ninth chief minister, only the second to not hail from the urban epicentre of Kolkata, Adhikari stands at the end of a classical political trail shaped by struggle, aspirations and contradictions.

Agnideb Bandyopadhyay is a senior sub-editor with Outlook. He writes on politics, culture and sports, with A focus on stories from the margins