Suvendu Adhikari: The Strongman Chief Minister Bengal Now Has to Live With
Because Mamta's goons couldn't bump him off the way they bumped of his PA. Bengal seems to be very pleased with this outcome Suvendu defeated Mamta in both the seats for which she stood for. It is the Wire which has to swallow its bile and live with a BJP administration in what was once the fortress of the Communist party.
If he governs as he campaigned, Bengal may see a saffron version of the same strongman state, with sharper communal edges and a more confident majoritarian grammar.
In other words, Hindus, who are the majority, will have things their own way. But that had already happened in 1947.
Suvendu Adhikari’s rise to the chief ministership of West Bengal is not the story of a clean political outsider sweeping away a corrupt old order.
Nor was Mamta's becoming CM or Jyoti Basu becoming CM or anyone else becoming CM.
Adhikari is a hard-edged insider
he is a second generation politician who spearheaded the Nandigram agitation which proved fatal to the Left Front. His father was a Minister of State in Manmohan's administration. He himself was elected to the Central Parliament in 2009. He gave up that seat for one in the Legislative Assembly so as to become Mamta's Transport Minister in 2016. In 2018, he was given the Environment portfolio. In 2020, after Mamta anointed her nephew her successor, he quit the party and joined the BJP.
who mastered Bengal’s violent, factional, patronage-driven politics,
His family had strong local roots and a tradition of activism going back to the Quit India movement. They were able to hold up their heads even under the Left Front's reign because the father had good relations with the Congress High Command & thus enjoyed a degree of protection. During the Eighties, he was the head of the Contai municipality and this remained the foundation of the family's political fortunes.
switched camps at a decisive moment,
Mamta did this much more often. She was with Congress & then with the NDA & then with Congress before returning to the BJP after Congress won with external support from the CPM. The 2006 election was her party's lowest ebb. She raised the issue of Bangladeshi infiltration in Parliament but found little support. It was then that she started to take an interest in land acquisition. Her 26 day hunger strike in December 2006 attracted national attention. In 2009 she broke with the BJP and allied with the UPA till she broke with them in 2012. There was always something whimsical about these changes of allegiance. Was she a hysterical biddy or a master tactician? I think she was guided by instinct. Her histrionics had given her a high media profile, but it wasn't till Nandigram that she found an issue which resonated with voters. By 2016, her party could go it alone. She won successively with two thirds majority- which is what her erstwhile lieutenant now has as Chief Minister.
Suvendu's trajectory, by contrast, has featured only two changes of allegiance. He had joined Contai municipality as a Congressman in 1995 before switching, along with the rest of his family, to Mamta's TMC in 1998. Mamta had split with Congress some months previously though it was uncertain if the breach could be repaired till she joined the BJP led NDA. Atal had great respect for her. Why did Mamta break with the BJP in 2001? Ostensibly, it was because of a corruption scandal. Still she returned a couple of years later and remained an ally of the BJP for a few years. Why? UPA 1 needed external support from the CPM. (They only withdrew it after Manmohan's 123 nuclear deal with the US). The CPM promise of industrialisation won them votes in 2006. Mamta looked like a crazy lady doomed to irrelevance in the Citadel of Indian Communism.
Mamta understood that the Left Front's land reforms had given them control over rural votes. This is what made them invulnerable. There would be one or two islands of Congress support but her future seemed bleak. Then, the CPM tried to transfer agricultural land to big corporations for car factories, chemical hubs etc. The very people who had voted for the Left Front, believing they would protect their interest in the land, now suspected that it would be snatched away. Mamta had found the chink in the armour of the Left Front. Suvendu Adhikhari, being located close to Nandigram, played an important role in orchestrating this at the grassroots level. He was elected to Parliament and voted with Congress till Mamta, who had become CM with Congress support the previous year, broke with Manmohan in 2012 over fuel price hikes, corruption scandals, etc. The short-term goal was to sweep the panchayat elections but Mamta was offering something more- viz. a different eco-system for talented people. Had Rahul not proved useless, the attraction of the Grand Old Party would have remained. A straw in the wind was Mahua Moitra, who started off in the Youth Congress, jumping ship in 2010 & joining the TMC. What if Mamta delivered on economic growth? Her crazy antics may have been mere youthful hi-jinks. Holding power might cause her to become mature in her outlook. West Bengal has tremendous economic potential. Kolkata was the place to be more particularly if you could get a Cabinet berth. Sadly, Mamta's style of governance was as populist and erratic as her performance as a Union Cabinet Minister. The corruption of her cronies appeared her Achilles heel. But, her own austere image enabled voters to believe that she would rid of herself of such sycophants & thus avert legal action by central agencies.
Suvendu, as Minister of Transport & Irrigation was the sort of clean & down to earth leader who could win back the voter's trust. But his own trust in Mamta was misplaced. As her ego grew- she now considered herself a great poet & painter- so did a nepotistic & dictatorial streak. She determined that her successor would be her own nephew. Those on whose backs she had risen were welcome to go out into the political wilderness.
and then repackaged himself as the Bharatiya Janata Party’s most aggressive Hindutva face in the state.
Because 'aggressive Hindutva faces'- like Yogi in UP- keep getting re-elected.
On May 9, 2026, Adhikari took oath as West Bengal’s first BJP chief minister, after the BJP won 207 seats in the assembly election and ended Mamata Banerjee’s 15-year rule.
He had previously defeated her in her own constituency. This time he defeated her in both of the constituencies where she stood. Bengal preferred him. They'd had enough of her.
His victory over Banerjee completed a remarkable personal arc. The Election Commission result page for Bhabanipur showed Adhikari defeating his once political guru by 73,917 votes to 58,812, a margin of 15,105 votes.
Clearly, the presence of the Reserve Police had restrained Mamta's thugs. Still, she was planning to massacre BJP people after winning. Suvendu's PA was killed the day after the election. I suppose someone forgot to cancel the 'hit'.
But the victory also brings to Writers’ Building a figure whose career is inseparable from controversy.
Like what? The CPM allegation that he had armed the Naxals? That was dropped after they lost power. What about various scams- e.g. Sharada etc. ? The answer is the same. If neither the ruling party at the Centre or in the State can gather the evidence to secure a conviction against their enemy, who can? The evidence doesn't exist. The controversy is over.
Yet the symbolism of that victory should not obscure the nature of the man now in power.
He is a man who can wield power. That is his nature. Bengal wants what he is offering.
Adhikari’s career has been shaped by organisational brilliance,
No. It was shaped by the senile stupidity of the CPM. Still, it is said, Suvendu was a very good Minister. No one ever said that about Mamta.
One thing often mentioned was his accessibility to ordinary people. That is where Mamta's nephew fell down.
opportunism,
He wasn't particularly opportunistic. He comes from a good family & doesn't want to sacrifice what they have built up over decades for the sake of his own ego.
controversy, allegations of corruption, communal polarisation and a striking comfort with confrontation.
Not controversial & no allegations have been proved. TMC was doing communal polarisation even though Mamta had previously raised the Bangladeshi infliltration issue. BJP was doing Hindu vote consolidation. In the short run, TMC got Muslim votes. Medium to longer term, they looked elsewhere because they didn't believe Modi was the bogeyman.
He is no accidental chief minister but the product of Bengal’s hardest forms of power politics.
Because it's softest form involves getting into a tickle fight with the baby.
A dynasty in Purba MedinipurAdhikari’s roots lie in his family’s long dominance over Purba Medinipur.
How did they acquire it? The answer is that they were part of the Quit India movement & then had to cope with famine & Muslim League misgovernment. Hindus needed to band together to survive.
The family’s influence over the Kanthi and Tamluk belts gave him a readymade political infrastructure.
Under the Left Front, such infrastructures had to be remade & renewed. Those who rested on their laurels were swept away.
His father Sisir Adhikari was an old-guard Congress leader whose long municipal and parliamentary career created a network of local patronage, cooperative influence and administrative access that helped his son, Suvendu, enter politics as an heir to a functioning regional machine.
No. Their success in local politics enabled the father to have a parliamentary career. But they remained focused on their base. It was their own ancestral land.
That inheritance, however, does not fully explain his rise.
Hard work does. The BJP wants a CM who can deliver growth. Adhikari was considered a very able administrator.
Adhikari’s political brand was born in Nandigram.
No. His brand was anti-Communism as championed first by Congress and then the TMC. Sadly Mamta has turned into a dynastic despot who wants to rule by terror. She has to go. Modi, by contrast, is a smart & decent democrat. True, he will drop Adhikari if he fucks up but that's because the Bengali voter will turn against him. Politics is about solving 'collective action problems'. It isn't about loyalty or inheritance or 'brands'.
In 2007, when the Left Front government’s land-acquisition push triggered a mass uprising, he emerged as one of the principal ground organisers of the anti-acquisition movement.
Why? Because he was a local politician who had been a councillor for 12 years. If he hadn't taken a leading role, who would have done so? Why is the Wire saying 'he is not an accidental CM' & then pretending that was all he is?
That movement helped Mamata Banerjee dismantle the Left’s 34-year rule, but it also gave Adhikari a separate political legitimacy.
His separate political legitimacy made him effective. People believed him because he was a local man from a local family who had held elective office for a dozen years.
No longer just Sisir’s son,
He was 37 years old.
he was now a tactical man in the field, mobilising village networks, coordinating resistance and helping turn agrarian anger into an anti-Left political force.
This is why the Wire hates him.
But Nandigram also supplied the first dark layer of his public persona. The same movement that made him a mass leader also associated him with a politics of force. West Bengal CID had claimed in 2010 that Adhikari supplied arms and ammunition to Maoists during the Nandigram violence.
West Bengal CID did what the Left Front told it to do, till the Left Front left office, after which they sang a different tune. The plain fact is, Naxals have been dealing in arms for decades. They can supply crime lords with guns and 'shooters'. Some guy running a municipality isn't a fucking arms dealer.
These remain allegations, not convictions, but politically they have long fed the perception of Adhikari as a ruthless organiser who treats power as something to be seized, defended and expanded through pressure.
The Wire has supplied arms and ammunition to Donald Trump. True, this is an allegation, not a conviction, but it has long fed the perception that Siddharth Vardarajan has been using the Donald as a catamite since the age of the dinosaurs.
Inside the TMC, Adhikari functioned as a regional satrap with his own cadre base, his own electoral geography and his own sense of political entitlement.
Because he was a politician of substance, not some rando helicoptered in.
He served as transport minister and irrigation minister, portfolios that placed him close to infrastructure, unions, logistics and the agrarian districts that formed his base.
Did he do a good job? Yes. That's why he is now CM.
A defection built on ambitionHis rupture with the TMC was not a simple ideological journey from one worldview to another.
Nor were Mamta's ruptures with Congress, NDA, UPA etc. So what? Sisir's daddy had been a Union Minister till Mamta broke with Manmohan in 2012. Since Modi didn't need the TMC, having a majority of his own, Suvendu was happy to return to Bengal to get a Ministerial portfolio there.
It was also a struggle over ambition, succession and control. As Mamata Banerjee’s nephew Abhishek rose within the TMC, leaders like Adhikari saw their future narrowed inside a party increasingly organised around the Banerjee family. Adhikari viewed himself as a co-architect of the TMC’s rise, not as a subordinate awaiting instruction from a dynastic successor.
Would Abhishek be good for West Bengal? Suppose the guy was a genius who could deliver 10 percent inclusive growth. Then people would want to stay in Mamta's cabinet. But both Mamta & Abhishek were stupid & paranoid. This was bad for Bengal. Suvendu did the right thing by jumping ship.
Adhikari’s defection to the BJP in 2020 gave the party something it had lacked in Bengal –
an experienced Minister with broad appeal.
a battle-tested Bengali organiser
They have RSS trained organizers- e.g. Samik Bhattacharya- but what they needed was a credible CM candidate who was obviously less shit than mad Mamta.
with intimate knowledge of the TMC’s booth machinery.
i.e. beating people
That transaction came with an ideological makeover for Adhikari who, during his Congress and TMC years, had operated within a broadly secular vocabulary, especially while working in districts with significant Muslim populations, such as Malda and Murshidabad.
Talk about growth is secular. If you can't mention growth because your goons keep stealing everything, all you can do is try to scare people into voting for you by saying 'Modi will prevent you eating fish or meat.'
After joining the BJP in December 2020, he embraced a far, far sharper Hindutva idiom.
Like Yogi. The question was whether Yogi would get re-elected. He did. Adhikari had been ahead of the curve.
He became one of the party’s most combative voices in Bengal, attacking Mamata Banerjee through communal insinuation, invoking border insecurity, illegal immigration and religious consolidation as central political themes.
The Wire will make no mention of the Bangladesh crisis. Yet, it had a palpable effect on voters.
The BJP’s gamble was clear.
They had wanted Mamta. They got Suvendu. It took some time but the ended up with the better leader.
Instead of building a state leadership organically,
this can't be done if 'organic' leaders keep getting beaten to death.
it imported a TMC strongman
from where? Japan?
and gave him a new ideological uniform.
He had a template to work from. The thing wasn't rocket-science.
In that sense, Adhikari resembles the BJP’s wider “turncoat model”
the 'aaya Ram, gaya Ram' model existed before the BJP came into existence. If you are denied a ticket from one party, you go to another party. If your party doesn't have enough seats you poach legislators from the other party. Rajiv Gandhi's anti-defection bill could not fully put a stop to this.
in eastern and north-eastern India – using leaders from non-BJP formations who bring local networks, administrative experience, and a willingness to adopt harder Hindutva messaging.
Because the population is moving from casteist Hinduism to caste-less Hindutva.
The closest comparison is Himanta Biswa Sarma in Assam.
He was made CM after Suvendu jumped ship. Moreover, in 2015, Sarma had the majority of Congress MLAs backing him. Ghulam Nabi Azad says that Rahul thought Congress didn't need him even though there could be repercussions for Congress in other North Eastern States. Sonia refused to intervene & so Assam was lost to the BJP.
In 2020, Suvendu's position was not comparable to Sarma. Even his defeating Mamta was seen as a fluke.
Both men were powerful regional operators inside non-BJP parties
Both were rising politicians within existing parties. When the leaders of those parties fucked up, they joined a party which was relatively new and wholly marginal. In 2015, BJP had 5 seats in Assam. In 2016 it had 60. It now has 82- a convincing majority.
before becoming central to the BJP’s expansion. Sarma came from the Congress, Adhikari from the TMC.
which came from Congress.
Both had deep organisational networks, a command over local political machinery, and a grievance against leadership structures that blocked their rise. Once inside the BJP, both became more than defectors.
Wire is saying that the majority of Hindus in TMC would rather be pro-Hindutva & the same was true of Assam. Sarma & Adhikari were more than 'defectors'. They were the mainstream.
Neither Sarma nor Adhikari represent the old RSS mould of patient ideological cadre building.
Because they aren't RSS members. The BJP is a broad church.
They represent a more muscular method that is nonetheless associated with the BJP.
Whereas tickle-fights are associated, by the Wire, with Stalin and Mao.
The party identifies ambitious regional heavyweights from rival formations, absorbs their networks, protects or elevates them, and then uses their administrative experience and local authority to conquer difficult states.
Anyone can identify an ambitious regional heavyweight. How do you get the dude to jump ship? Nobody will do so unless they think their own ship will sink whereas your Captain knows how to steer your craft to safety.
This model allows the BJP to overcome its organisational weakness in regions where it historically lacked deep roots.
Congress has deep roots all over the place. Why is it doing so badly? If it is because it is run by a shithead, then there is a good reason by a competitive political system will throw up a party which isn't run by a shithead.
The similarities are not merely organisational. Both leaders also sharpened their ideological vocabulary after entering the BJP.
Because Rahul started babbling about 'vichardhara'.
Sarma became one of the BJP’s most aggressive voices on issues of identity, migration and Muslim minority politics in Assam.
Because that was what voters were really concerned about.
Adhikari followed a similar path in Bengal, moving from TMC style regional pragmatism
theft?
to a combative Hindutva language. The leader who once worked inside a coalition dependent on Muslim votes recast himself as a majoritarian tribune. His hate-laced rhetoric around “Begum”, “Mini Pakistan” and Muslim vote consolidation signalled a politics that views Bengal less as a shared civic space than as a battlefield of religious blocs.
Bengal was partitioned in 1947. Adhikari will ensure that it isn't partitioned again. The Wire weeps bitter tears at this prospect.
In the communally charged 2021 assembly election, Adhikari defeated Mamata Banerjee in Nandigram in 2021 by 1,956 votes, becoming the BJP’s most potent anti-Mamata symbol.
It seems there were a lot of fake Muslim voters in Nandigram. That is why the margin wasn't much wider.
Opposition as permanent warfareAs Leader of the Opposition between 2021 and 2026, Adhikari sharpened the politics of permanent confrontation. He brought a street fighter style into the assembly,
Mamta was the original street-fighter. This is a picture of her from 1975 dancing on the bonnet of JP Narayan's car.
repeatedly clashing with the state government and the Speaker.
like Rahul?
His tenure saw legislative disruption, suspension, legal battles, and hundreds of criminal cases filed against him by the state police.
false cases.
He also turned courts, communal flashpoints and public confrontation into instruments of political war.
Meanwhile, Mamta was indulging in tickle-fights with her pal the President- right?
His role in pushing for central investigation into the Ram Navami violence showed the same method.
It showed he would stand up for Hindus.
He used the judiciary to challenge the state government’s control over law-and-order narratives, securing a major political victory when the probe was transferred to the National Investigation Agency (NIA).
Would the Centre take action against TMC goons during SIR & the Elections? Yes. Would it be enough? Thankfully, yes.
... Bengal’s new chief minister takes office surrounded by the very forces that made him.
Because he is Bengali, not Italian.
Political violence,
is a crime. Punish it by all means.
institutional mistrust, communal suspicion and factional revenge are not external problems for Adhikari. They are part of the political soil from which he grew. The killing of his aide Chandranath Rath after the election underlined the volatile atmosphere into which the new government was born.
We think TMC had hired goons to 'hit' selected victims from opposition parties. They should have cancelled all of them after they lost. But maybe someone forgot to tell the killers of Chandranath Rath.
The strongman paradox
The paradox of Suvendu Adhikari is that he presents himself as a decisive break from the political order that shaped him,
i.e. doesn't give a shit about Muslim votes & Iftar parties & allowances for Mullahs etc.
while carrying many of the same habits of power that have long defined Bengal’s competitive political culture.
Even more paradoxical is the fact that the guy who just won the heavy-weight boxing match has many of the same habits as those who are very good at punching people.
He knows patronage because he grew inside it.
No. He knows local government because that is what he and his Daddy did till they went into the central parliament after he successfully led the Nandigram agitation which greatly helped his party. He himself returned to Kolkata & became a Minister of Transport & Irrigation. This is a story of just deserts, not patronage.
The suggestio falsi here is that Daddy was the head of some powerful, wealthy, political machine rather than a small municipality in rural Bengal.
He knows factionalism because he practised it.
No. Some Leftist parties are factionalist for ideological reasons or because of a squabble between siblings or cousins. TMC wasn't factionalist. BJP isn't factionalist. Why? They aim to be parties of governance.
He knows coercive mobilisation because his career was forged in its theatre.
He knows defensive mobilisation because the Commies came to power when he was still in short pants.
He attacks corruption while carrying the burden of unresolved scam allegations.
Which must either be false or unprovable in a court of law- otherwise he'd be in jail by now.
He promises order while speaking the language of polarisation.
Nothing wrong with polarising those who obey the law against those who don't.
His supporters will call him decisive and rooted in Bengal’s soil.
They call him the Chief Minister with a two thirds majority.
His critics will call him opportunist, communal and toxic.
Some are now apologizing to him saying the TMC threatened them with dire consequences if they did not bad-mouth him.
Adhikari is an organiser with deep networks, proven electoral instinct and the ability to convert anger into power.
Hindu anger? Fair point. But Muslims too were angry with Mamta's goons.
But he is also a leader whose politics has repeatedly blurred the line between mobilisation and intimidation,
Why has the author of this article not mentioned at least one such incident?
ideology and communal provocation,
Only Muslims can be provoked. Hindus like it if you offer to chop off their infidel heads.
corruption and selective accountability.
He was part of the TMC & is tainted for that reason. But he is less tainted because he quit.
The question now is whether Suvendu Adhikari can govern differently from the way he rose.
He rose democratically by winning elections and joining with others to solve collective action problems. That is the only way he can govern because India is a democracy.
If he governs as he campaigned, Bengal may see a saffron version of the same strongman state, with sharper communal edges and a more confident majoritarian grammar.
That's what Bengal wants. That's what it will get.
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