West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari on Wednesday took oath as legislator from Bhabanipur in Kolkata, announcing that Nandigram – the East Midnapore seat he has held since 2016 – will now go to by-elections.
“I had to follow my party’s decision. Someone else will be elected from Nandigram, but I promise that for the next five years, I will not allow people there to feel even once that I am not their party. All the promises I made during the campaign will be fulfilled,” Adhikari said.
The Prime Minister, who is scheduled to visit Bhabanipur on Wednesday evening, toured Nandigram three times recently to thank voters after the decisive victory of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), bagging 207 of the 294 seats in Bengal against 80 for the Trinamool Congress (TMC).
Adhikari defeated TMC chief and former chief minister Mamata Banerjee in the April 29 elections by a margin of over 15,000 votes. This comes after the 2021 polls where Adhikari also defeated Banerjee in Nandigram by around 2,000 votes, a loss that forced her to contest a by-poll in Bhabanipur to retain her position as the then chief minister.
Adhikari first won the Nandigram seat in 2016 while serving as TMC Lok Sabha member from Tamluk. After resigning from Parliament to join the state government, he eventually severed ties with the TMC in December 2020 to join the BJP.
In a separate development, Humayun Kabir – the former TMC legislator from Bharatpur who was suspended in December for laying the foundation stone for a Babri Masjid-style mosque – registered victories in both Noda and Reginagar seats under his newly formed Aam Janata Unnayan party.
“I will represent Noda. The Election Commission will fix a date for Reginagar polls,” Kabir said.
