West Bengal Assembly Elections 2026 | Suvendu’s high-pitched Hindutva faces former aide’s challenge in Nandigram

“The Hindu villages here have the flags of the Trinamool Congress, but the Bharatiya Janata Party’s flags cannot be seen in the Muslim villages,” Suvendu Adhikari says as he addresses an evening rally at Binandapur in Nandigram. “The BJP candidate cannot campaign in the Muslim villages, but the TMC candidate can do so in the Hindu villages,” he goes on, and then adds: “I have come here to know when you will unite.”

The BJP’s de facto chief ministerial candidate in West Bengal then belabours to clarify to his audience in the Hindu-majority village – decked up with the saffron flags inscribed Jai Sri Ram in Hindi – what he means when he calls for unity.

He complains that if he gets just two votes in a polling booth set up in a madrasa, the TMC candidate gets 800 votes. But, on the other hand, in a booth in a high school with the majority of voters being Hindus, while he gets 400 of the 700 votes polled, the TMC secures 250, and the others 50. I hope that if I don’t get a single vote in the booths set up in the high madrasa, then you, who have Tilak on your forehead, Tulsi in your neck, and mothers and sisters, who wear Sindoor (vermilion streak on forehead and hair parting), Shankha and Pala (traditional bangles worn by married Hindu Bengali women), will also make TMC score zero in their booth,” he says, adding: “Did you understand?” “Yes”, the crowd cheers, and Suvendu ends his speech with a “Jai Sri Ram” slogan.

Nandigram in the Purba Medinipur district is a landmark in West Bengal’s politics. An agitation by the farmers to resist the proposed acquisition of about 10000 acres of land by the then Left Front government of the state for the Salim Group of Indonesia to set up a hub of chemical industries led to violence, and at least 14 people were killed in firing by police during a crackdown on the protesters on March 14, 2007. Mamata Banerjee, along with other social organisations, played a key role in the protest, which helped the TMC oust the Left Front from power and catapulted her to the office of the chief minister. Suvendu was then a close aide of Mamata and played a key role in TMC’s rise from the 2007-2008 agitation in Nandigram.

But much water has since flowed down Haldi, the river that skirts Purba Medinipur. Nandigram now has a new claim to fame. This is where Suvendu, who quit the TMC in December 2020, contested against Mamata as the BJP’s candidate in the March-April 2021 elections, and beat her with a narrow margin. This is where he is contesting again – in addition to taking on the TMC supremo in Bhabanipur.

Nandigram TMC candidate Pabitra Kar.

Suvendu’s aide, Pabitra Kar, quit the BJP and went back to the TMC last month. He is now the ruling party’s candidate in Nandigram, contesting against his former mentor and the leader of the opposition in the outgoing legislative assembly.

“Mamata, herself, did not dare to contest from Nandigram again. They bought someone to contest against me – someone whom nobody knows here,” Suvendu says in Binandapur, as he accuses the local TMC leaders of hooliganism and of intimidating the BJP supporters.

Suvendu’s father, Sisir Adhikari, was with the Congress and the TMC before joining the BJP in 2021. He was a legislator and a parliamentarian for almost two decades. Dibyendu and Soumendu, his other sons, were also elected to the Lok Sabha from Tamluk and Kanthi. Dibyendu is now contesting the assembly elections as the BJP candidate in Egra.

“I decided to join the BJP to resist the hegemony that the ‘Adhikari Private Limited Company’ wanted to establish in the Purba Medinipur district,” Pabitra takes a dig at the Adhikaris, as he leads a bike rally at Kendamari in Nandigram. “He (Suvendu) will surely lose, as people are no longer with him.”

“Your (Mamata’s) road to the office of the chief minister was strewn with the blood of the martyrs of Nandigram. But you betrayed Nandigram, neglected Nandigram,” Suvendu hits out at the TMC supremo. He criticises Mamata for driving out industries, apparently referring to the agitation that he, himself, had helped mobilise, as well as for allegedly stalling a railway project and a drinking water supply programme in Nandigram, apart from blocking implementation of the central government’s schemes.

Kar, however, promises a bridge over Haldi, a cold-storage for fishermen, a stadium and a medical college in Nandigram, apart from upgrading the local agricultural market.

As he emerged as the most firebrand leader of the BJP in West Bengal, Suvendu wore the Hindutva on his sleeve. “Jo Hamare Sath, Hum Unke Sath (We are with those who are with us). Stop saying Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas (We are with all to ensure the welfare of all),” he said after the BJP suffered a setback in the assembly elections in West Bengal in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, adding: “There is no need to have the minority morcha within the party.” The Leader of the Opposition in the state assembly has been repeatedly saying that the Special Intensive Revision of the electoral rolls would strike off the illegal Muslim migrants from Myanmar and Bangladesh, whom the TMC had turned into its vote bank to stay in power.

“I have been protecting Sanatanis of Nandigram over the past five years,” he says in the rally in Binandapur, and then adds that he has rushed to stand by the Hindus whenever they were attacked across the state. “The Muslims vote for Mamata, but I reached before her to Bogtui in Rampurhat, when people of the minority community were killed in 2022.”