Suvendu Adhikari: From fierce opposition leader and big wins to West Bengal's top chair

It did not come as a big surprise when Union Home Minister Amit Shah formally appointed and announced Suvendu Adhikari as the leader of the party’s legislative wing in West Bengal on Friday.

The move also made it clear that Suvendu will be sworn-in as West Bengal's new chief minister on Saturday amid high political drama. He will be the first to take the state's top chair from the BJP.

Suvendu has earned his way to the top, defeating former chief minister and Trinamool Congress (TMC) chief Mamata Banerjee twice in two Assembly elections. The first came in his own backyard of Nandigram in 2021 and the next was a massive upset in Bhabanipur, an "impregnable" bastion in the recently concluded polls.

The 55-year-old also plated a key role in strategising BJP's historic first triumph in Bengal. This further cemented his reputation as one of the primary architects of the party’s remarkable ascent in the state.

The BJP leader served as the Leader of Opposition for the last five years in the Bengal Assembly as he emerged as the principal challenger to the regime of Mamata Banerjee.

He has been the face of fierce legislative battles and several agitations within the Assembly. Suvendu, as the Leader of the Opposition, positioned himself at the forefront of the BJP’s campaign against the government’s policies and legislations, making combative speeches and charged interventions on the floor of the House.

However, it did not come without controversies and backlash. He faced multiple suspensions from the Assembly, while in the opposition. These punitive measure symbolised the deepening acrimony between the treasury and opposition benches.

Some suspensions even lasted the entirety of a session of the House, but others were equally severe. In February 2025, Suvendu was barred from the Assembly for an uninterrupted period of 30 days, underscoring the extraordinary intensity of the political face-offs that came to define that period in the state’s legislative history.

The BJP leader remained defiant and took the battle against the ruling party outside the Assembly, leading BJP's street resistance against the TMC. He spearheaded protests over the alleged post-poll violence following the 2021 assembly elections and led marches towards state secretariat 'Nabanna' and mobilising cadres over issues of corruption, unemployment and law and order.

He also had an aggressive role in the agitation against the School Service Commission (SSC) recruitment scam and targeted the government over allegations of systemic corruption and demanding accountability at the highest levels.

Suvendu was at the centre of BJP's agitations, mobilising supporters during some of the state's most volatile periods. He led a long-term protest over alleged electoral violence and intimidation in 2023, while in 2024, he became one of the most visible faces of the party’s agitation over the unrest in Sandeshkhali, accusing the ruling establishment of shielding local strongmen and suppressing dissent.

More recently, Suvendu also led the protests in the aftermath of the outrage surrounding RG Kar Medical College and Hospital, seeking to transform public anger into a broader movement against the state government.

Suvendu steadily gained the reputation of an aggressive opposition leader who remained at the forefront of virtually every major BJP agitation in Bengal ever since he switched camps from the Trinamool to the BJP in December, 2020.

During campaigning, Shah had said that the new chief minister from NJP would be a son of the soil, born and raised in the state, shaped by its culture, and educated through the Bengali-medium system, all of which fits Adhikari.

Born in Karkuli village in Purba Medinipur district to veteran politician Sisir Adhikari and Gayatri Adhikari, his formative years were marked by his primary and secondary education at Contai High School before pursuing an undergraduate degree in Arts from Prabhat Kumar College in the same region.

He then pursued Master's degree in History from Kolkata’s Rabindra Bharati University, a trajectory that reinforced his image as a quintessential Bengali political figure whose rise was forged not outside, but from within the heartland of the state itself.

Suvendu is one of the most recognisable faces from the BJP in Bengal. He functioned as minister of transport from May 2016 to November 2020 and also a minister of the environment department from 2018 to 2020 in the erstwhile Mamata Banerjee cabinet, when he was in the TMC.

Shah declared that no alternate names were proposed for the chief minister's position, effectively declaring him as the unanimous choice of the party’s newly elected legislator.