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After the Bihar election, all eyes will be on one state — West Bengal and its Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee who has had an uninterrupted run since 2011. Although her party swept back into power in the 2021 assembly poll, when the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) hoped to win big, Banerjee, the biggest face of not just the Trinamool Congress (TMC) but state politics, faced her first defeat in decades after 1989. Her old aide-turned-BJP’s face in Bengal Suvendu Adhikari defeated her from Nandigram with a slim margin of 1,956 votes. She was elected back in a smooth by-poll win from her traditional Bhawanipore seat in south Kolkata with 58,832 votes. Cut to March 2025, when Adhikari challenged the West Bengal Chief Minister to contest the 2026 assembly elections from Bhawanipore, asserting that she would face a ‘crushing defeat’ in her home constituency, hinting that he was ready to take the fight to the Chief Minister’s home turf. Suvendu Adhikari at the meet. (News18) “You will be defeated in Bhawanipore as well. You will have to endure the pain of another loss for five more years, just like in Nandigram,” Adhikari had said back then, which was construed as an arrogant political attack. But this Sunday, in a rather uneventful, small-scale socio-political meet in Banerjee’s constituency, Adhikari said something that has mostly gone overlooked in the current news cycle. Adhikari dropped enough hints to suggest, just like Banerjee took the fight to Nandigram in 2021, he may do the same in Bhawanipore in 2026. “Please cooperate a little, listen to me. I will take care of the rest. If a false case is filed, getting bail is our [BJP’s] responsibility. Do not bow your head. If you are attacked, we will stand by you and take care of the family. If your business is shut, we will create business for you,” were the reassurances he gave to BJP cadres who fear to take on the TMC, that too in the state’s most high-profile constituency. Adhikari understood that convincing the BJP cadre to give their best shot, after many BJP activists bore the brunt in 2021 post-poll violence when the BJP was accused of deserting its cadres, wasn’t an easy job. He reasoned, “The BJP is in power in 20 states. I will take your businesses to Bhubaneshwar, Guwahati, Agartala. If the work is taken away, let them. Here you don’t get to earn more than Rs 6,000-8,000 [a month]. If they snatch your job for supporting the BJP, come to me. I will take you to Haryana.” Suvendu Adhikari’s meet. (News18) “Get together, get prepared. This seat should be taken,” he said from the small stage which was meant for Bijoya greetings, where political leaders meet and greet after Durga Puja in Bengal, much like Diwali Milan in the North. The BJP leaders who were on stage and cadres who were off were in for a surprise. Bengal BJP leader Keya Ghosh, who was present in the informal meet-and-greet that turned into a political launchpad, told News18, “This is not the first time Adhikari has challenged Banerjee to fight the 2026 assembly election from Bhawanipore — her seat. What was different this time was making the intent clear that the BJP is not bluffing when it says it wants to snatch the seat. Adhikari has defeated her in Nandigram the last time. This time, she will be defeated in Bhawanipore.” Does that almost make it certain that it will be a Suvendu Adhikari versus Mamata Banerjee fight all over again in Banerjee’s home turf? Ghosh said that the final decision rests with the BJP’s Parliamentary Board. Adhikari has been trying to convince the BJP cadre why a win from this VVIP seat is attainable. “Bhawanipore is a BJP seat. In 2014, the BJP held a lead here. In the last Lok Sabha elections, the BJP led in five out of eight wards. Out of 267, the BJP led in 142, and the TMC led in 125 booths,” is his reasoning. On being asked whether he will fight from Bhawanipore, Adhikari evaded saying, “The lotus will fight from here and the lotus will win.” TMC leader Jaiprakash Majumdar hit back saying Adhikari is “pouring ghee” in his “biryani of dreams”. “My advice — think about the condition of BJP. If it comes below 30 seats this time, the BJP won’t even be allowed to have a leader of opposition, which seems plausible,” he scoffs.
