West Bengal | Mamata vs Suvendu battle takes centre stage in latter’s home turf

An intense personality clash between West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari has emerged as the most dramatic subplot of the electoral battle in Bengal.

This plot thickens and climaxes in the two parliamentary constituencies of Tamluk and Kanthi in East Midnapore district — the home turf of the Adhikari family where Banerjee had to bite the dust in last assembly elections. The two constituencies are going to polls on Saturday (May 25).

For the record, the BJP candidate in Tamluk is Abhijit Ganguly, a former judge of the Kolkata High Court. He is pitted against TMC’s greenhorn Debangshu Bhattacharya. In neighbouring Kanthi, BJP’s Somendu Adhikari, brother of Suvendu, is contesting against Uttam Barik of the TMC.

Mamata eyes reprisal

However, behind the facade of these poll battles, it is Banerjee and Adhikari who are at daggers drawn. Banerjee is eyeing retribution for her humiliating defeat in the 2021 assembly elections in Nandigram by a margin of around 2,000 votes at the hands of her protégé turned arch-rival Suvendu.

Nandigram, an assembly segment under Tamluk, is vital for the TMC supremo for her political symbolism being the springboard that catapulted her to the saddle of power. No wonder, she and her party are still smarting over her defeat there three years ago.

“I have told you how the result of the Nandigram (assembly seat) was manipulated. The BJP plotted its victory causing load-shedding (during counting). I will avenge that one day,” Banerjee told an election rally at Haldia, another assembly segment under Tamluk that the BJP had won three years ago.

“Will you not take revenge for what had happened in 2021 (in Nandigram),” her nephew Abhishek Banerjee asked people at a rally in Nandigram.

Suvendu wields clout

The triumph against Banerjee not only enhanced Adhikari’s political stature but also made him a strong claimant of the legacy of Nandigram mass movement that helped the TMC to dethrone the 34-year-old Left Front government in 2011.

Adhikari often claims he was the architect of the movement against forceful land acquisition in Nandigram. His victory against Banerjee gave some credence to the claim, and that made him, in the eyes of BJP, most suitable challenger to Banerjee’s political legacy.

“The more you attack him (Adhikari), the bigger the leader the BJP will make him,” Union Home Minister Amit Shah said hours after Adhikari’s house was raided by Bengal police earlier this week.

The BJP has already made him its influential leader in Bengal, giving him free hand to pick party candidates in this election. As many as 28 of the BJP’s 42 candidates are his loyalists, BJP sources claimed. According to them, Adhikari wields so much clout in the BJP that the party, at his behest, even shunted out a tall leader like Dilip Ghosh from his home turf of Medinipur to a relatively tough Bardhaman-Durgapur Lok Sabha constituency.

His growing stature in the party is also evident from the way he is leading the BJP’s charge on a host of issues, be it alleged atrocities committed against women by TMC leaders in Sandeshkhali or corruption charges against TMC ministers and leaders.

Defending home turf

However, knives will be out for Adhikari if the BJP fails to improve its performance of winning 18 seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls under Ghosh’s leadership. Besides, he will also have to defend his home turf to retain his political domination.

The TMC is determined to politically uproot him from his home district to wrest back the Nandigram legacy. In 2021, the TMC won9 of the 16 seats in East Midnapore, Adhikari’s political stronghold. The BJP emerged victorious in seven seats despite the statewide TMC surge due to his influence in the area.

Without naming Adhikari family, Banerjee claimed in Haldia that ‘gaddars’ had colluded with the CPI(M), which led to mass killings in Nandigram (during the land movement).

“The truth will come out one day….. Nandigram would not have survived if I was not there… I stayed awake night after night,” she added.

Her claim will sound like a lament if her party fails to put up a good show in these two Lok Sabha seats of the district.