Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Friday declared Suvendu Adhikari the BJP’s legislative party leader in West Bengal, paving his way to become chief minister of the eastern state after coming to power in a historic victory earlier this week.
Adhikari will take oath as the head of the first BJP state government in West Bengal at a public ceremony at the Brigade Parade Grounds in Kolkata on Saturday in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Shah and chief ministers of several BJP-ruled states on a day that marks the birth anniversary of Rabindranath Tagore. Leaders familiar with the developments said the new government was also likely to have two deputy prime ministers.
“A meeting of our West Bengal Legislative Party was held. I and BJP state president, Odisha CM Mohan Majhi, were observers. Elections were held. We received proposals from eight people and almost all of them suggested the same name. We also gave time for a second name but no one came. So, I declared Suvendu Adhikari as the president of the Bengal Legislative Party,” Shah said.
In the evening, Adhikari – who defeated Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee first in Nandigram in 2021 and then in Bhabanipur in 2026 – met Governor RN Ravi and demanded formation of the first BJP government in the state.
The 55-year-old leader was accompanied by Union Ministers Bhupinder Yadav, Sukanta Majumdar and Santanu Thakur, Odisha CM Mohan Charan Majhi, Bengal BJP chief Samik Bhattacharya and other senior leaders like Dilip Ghosh, Locket Chatterjee and Tapas Roy. They also presented a list of the names of the representatives who will be sworn in, but the party did not reveal the names.
“I express my gratitude to national president Amit Shah. With the Prime Minister’s blessings, I was elected as the leader of the legislative party. I have received support from all the MLAs. There is democracy in the BJP. We will fulfill the commitment made by the BJP during the elections to the organization and the public,” Adhikari said.
Leaders familiar with the discussions said the new government would have representation from the Gurkha, tribal and Dalit Matu communities. The names of Dilip Ghosh, Agnimitra Paul, Swapan Dasgupta, Roopa Ganguly, Subrata Thakur, Joel Murmu and Noman Rai were among the names discussed, the above-mentioned leaders said.
“For more than 50 years, Bengal has gone through a nightmare in terms of development and progress. Bengal’s culture and traditions have been influenced by foreign ideas. We must revive Bengal which was shaped by the visions of Ramakrishna Paramahansha, Rabindranath Tagore and Subhas Chandra Bose,” Shah said.
Paying tribute to party icon Syama Prasad Mukherjee, he said: “After the abrogation of Article 370 in Kashmir, some people said that our work remained incomplete. Today, Syama Prasad Mukherjee must bless Narendra Modi for fulfilling his dream. The BJP flag is flying from Gangotri to Gangasagar.”
“BJP’s journey from 2014 to 2026 is proof that our organization has not only become strong, but our ideas have also reached millions of homes,” Shah added.
“I cannot forget that 321 BJP workers died in Bengal during this mission. I have never seen such cruelty in politics in any state except Kerala and Bengal. Only the communists and the TMC indulged in such violence. My sincere regards to the families of these 321 workers,” Shah said.
Shah told the audience that ending infiltration from Bangladesh, stopping cattle smuggling, and enhancing security along the border were the urgent priorities of the new government, along with ensuring women’s security and fulfilling the promises made by the BJP in its election manifesto.
“A lot of questions have been raised about the EC, not only by the TMC but by other parties as well, but not a single polling station was seized and not a single person was killed. I congratulate the EC, central paramilitary forces and all state police personnel,” he said.
The Bharatiya Janata Party scored a historic victory in West Bengal by winning 207 seats on Monday, the first time the eastern region has shifted to the political right since independence. The landslide – which saw the BJP consolidate Hindu voters in an unprecedented manner, make its way into Banerjee’s stronghold in south Bengal, tap into resentment against popular corruption, and rely on 15 years of anti-incumbency – led to Banerjee losing her Bhabanipur seat to BJP’s Suvendu Adhikari by 15,000 votes. The TMC won only 80 seats.
For the BJP, the 2026 Bengal polls have proven to be a game-changer after 49 years of uncertainty.
Haripada Bharati, the principal of Narasingha Dutta College in Howrah who became the first president of the BJP’s Bengal unit in 1980, and Vishnu Kant Sashtri, the Calcutta University professor who succeeded Bharati as state president in 1982, became legislators for the first time in 1977 but both contested as Janata Party candidates. They were opposition MLAs during the first Left Front government.
Photos of Bharati and Sashtri were kept on the podium on Friday and Shah and Adhikari paid tributes to them.
The Congress government led by Siddhartha Shankar Ray (1972 to 1977) was the last government in Bengal to be run by a party that was also in power at the Centre.
The BJP was unable to win a single seat during the Left’s 34-year rule, but after TMC defeated the Left in 2011, Samik Bhattacharya, the current state president, won a seat in a bypoll in 2014. After that, the BJP won three seats in 2016 and 77 in 2021.
