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Dada to replace Didi in West Bengal; Vijay meets governor again, left on hold in Tamil Nadu
BJP's Suvendu Adhikari will be sworn in as chief minister of West Bengal today, days after the party swept to power in a landmark victory.
Union home minister Amit Shah on Friday declared Suvendu Adhikari the leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) West Bengal legislative party, paving his way to become chief minister of the eastern state after sweeping to power in a landmark victory earlier this week.
Adhikari will take oath as 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 CMs from several BJP-ruled states on a day that marks Rabindranath Tagore’s birth anniversary. The new government is also likely to have two deputy chief ministers, said leaders aware of developments.
“A meeting of our West Bengal legislative party was held. The BJP state president, Odisha CM Mohan Majhi, and I were observers. An election was 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 none came. So, I declare Suvendu Adhikari the head 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 staked claim to form the first BJP government in the state.
The 55-year-old leader was accompanied by Union ministers Bhupender Yadav, Sukanta Majumdar and Santanu Thakur, Odisha CM Mohan Charan Majhi, BJP Bengal chief Samik Bhattacharya, and other senior leaders such as Dilip Ghosh, Locket Chatterjee, and Tapas Roy. They also submitted a list of MLAs who would take oath, but the party did not disclose the names.
“I express gratitude to the national president, to Amit Shah. With the blessings of the Prime Minister, I have been elected as the leader of the legislative party. I have received support from all MLAs. There is democracy in the BJP. We will fulfil the commitment of the BJP made during elections for the organisation and the public,” Adhikari said.
Leaders aware of the discussions said the new government will have representation from the Gorkha, tribal and the Dalit Matua communities. The names of Dilip Ghosh, Agnimitra Paul, Swapan Dasgupta, Rupa Ganguly, Subrata Thakur, Joyel Murmu and Noman Rai were among those being discussed, said the leaders cited above.
“For more than 50 years, Bengal went through a nightmare as far as development and progress are concerned. Bengal’s culture and traditions were influenced by foreign thoughts. We must revive the Bengal shaped by the visions of Ramakrishna Paramahansha, Rabindranath Tagore and Subhas Chandra Bose,” Shah said.
Paying homage to the party’s icon, Syama Prasad Mookerjee, he said, “After the abrogation of Article 370 in Kashmir, some people said that our work remained incomplete. Today Syama Prasad Mookerjee must be blessing Narendra Modi for fulfilling his dream. The BJP flag flutters from Gangotri to Gangasagar.”
“The BJP’s journey from 2014 to 2026 is proof that not only our organisation got strong but our thoughts also reached millions of homes,” Shah added.
“I cannot forget that 321 BJP workers died in Bengal for this mission. I never saw this cruelty in politics in any state except Kerala and Bengal. Only the communists and the TMC indulged in such violence. I pay my deepest regards to the families of those 321 workers,” Shah said.
Shah told the audience that ending infiltration from Bangladesh, stopping cattle smuggling, and bolstering security along the border were immediate priorities for the new government, alongside ensuring the security of women and fulfilling the promises made in the BJP’s poll manifesto.
“A lot of questions were raised on the EC not just by TMC but other parties as well but not a single polling booth was captured and not a single person died. I congratulate the EC, the central paramilitary forces and all state police personnel,” he said.
The BJP had swept to a historic triumph in West Bengal with 207 seats on Monday, marking the first time the eastern province had turned to the political right since independence. The landslide –– which saw the BJP craft an unprecedented consolidation of Hindu voters, make inroads into Banerjee’s south Bengal bastion, capitalise on resentment against grassroots corruption, and bank on 15 years of anti-incumbency –– saw Banerjee lose her own seat of Bhabanipur to BJP’s Suvendu Adhikari by 15,000 votes. The TMC won just 80 seats.
For the BJP, the 2026 Bengal polls proved to be a gamechanger after 49 years in the wilderness.
Haripada Bharati, the then principal of Howrah’s Narasingha Dutta College who became the first president of the Bengal BJP unit in 1980, and Vishnu Kant Sashtri, a 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.
Portraits of Bharati and Sashtri were kept on the dais on Friday and both Shah and Adhikari paid homage to them.
The Congress government led by Siddhartha Shankar Ray (1972 to 1977) was the last one in Bengal to be run by a party that was also in power at the Centre.
The BJP could not win any seat during the 34-year-long Left rule, but after TMC defeated the Left in 2011, Samik Bhattacharya, the current state president, won a seat in a 2014 by-poll. After that, the BJP won three seats in 2016 and 77 in 2021.
