Suvendu Adhikari, the Leader of the Opposition in the West Bengal Assembly, who defeated Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in her Bhabanipur constituency on Monday, has emerged as the front-runner for the chief minister’s post after the BJP swept the Assembly elections in the eastern state, party functionaries said.
The BJP won the West Bengal Assembly elections for the first time on Monday, winning 206 of the state’s 293 seats that counted. Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress (TMC) won (or was leading) 81 seats.
However, BJP leaders said the party has not ruled out the names of state unit president Samik Bhattacharya and vice president Agnimitra Paul as other potential showdowns for the Prime Minister. Paul won from Asansol Dakshin on Monday.
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According to a senior BJP functionary, Adhikari could be rewarded for defeating Mamata Banerjee not once, but twice – this time by a margin of 15,105 votes in Bhabanipur. He had also defeated Banerjee from Nandigram in the 2021 polls by 1,956 votes. “He has been tough on Mamata since he left the TMC in 2020,” said a senior Bangladesh BJP leader, requesting anonymity. In return, the TMC government has filed around 300 cases against Adhikari, the commander added.
On April 2, when Adhikari filed his nomination papers from Bhabanipur seat in Kolkata, Union Home Minister Amit Shah accompanied him, indicating that the party’s top brass were behind him. Shah then said: “Mamata won the last election, but was defeated by Suvendu Adhikari. This year, Mamata will lose across Bengal as well as in Bhabanipur.”
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Another senior BJP leader pointed out that unlike the Lok Sabha polls, the party has never fielded any candidate for two Assembly seats in recent history. “For Adhikari, this was a test of his charisma and ability as an opposition leader,” said the leader, who also requested that his name not be published.
In Bhabanipur, Adhikari polled 73,917 votes against Mamata Banerjee’s 58,812 votes. Adhikari also won the Nandigram seat against TMC’s Pabitra Kar by a margin of 9,665 votes. “This is a historic victory… Hindutva victory, Bengal victory, Modiji victory,” Adhikari told reporters as he held his victory certificate outside the counting station at Sakawat Memorial School in Kolkata.
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BJP functionaries said Agnimitra Paul is also in the race and could become an ideal candidate for the top job if the party decides to support a woman as chief minister. Paul was a Member of Parliament for the Lok Sabha from 2019 to 2024. The functionaries noted that Samik Bhattacharya can be credited with that under his leadership the party won the first parliamentary elections in Bengal. Bhattacharya is currently a member of Rajya Sabha.
The BJP is likely to call a meeting of all newly elected legislators in Kolkata in the next few days. However, party leaders said there is no clarity on when the party will call a party legislative meeting to elect its leader who will be the prime minister.
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“We expect the party to appoint an observer to hold the legislative party meeting in the next few days. Once this is done, the ball will start rolling for formation of a BJP government in the state,” a third BJP leader said.
Adhikari, who held several portfolios in the Mamata Banerjee-led government, switched from the TMC to the BJP in December 2020. Shah welcomed him to the party at a rally.
Adhikari conducted a high-profile campaign across the state in the last two months, BJP leaders said. A BJP leader said Adhikari shaped the party’s 2025 campaign by publicly declaring that the BJP should focus on Bengal’s 70.54% Hindu voters and ignore about 27% Muslims.
Muslim voters play a decisive role in at least 120 of the 294 Bengal Assembly seats. The BJP won only 77 of them in 2021. The party fielded nine Muslim candidates but none of them won.
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“In the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, we got 38% votes. These are all Hindu votes. If 10% Hindus vote for us, we will oust Mamata Banerjee next year,” he said at a rally in East Midnapore in January last year.
On Monday, the BJP won comfortably in several seats with high Muslim populations, such as Malda, Murshidabad, Howrah, Kolkata and Birbhum.
