1 AITC hopes to confine Suvendu Adhikari in Nandigram

The BJP has not announced a chief ministerial candidate in West Bengal, and probably will not announce one as well. It shocked the All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections by winning 18 out of the 42 Lok Sabha constituencies in the state, and crossed the 40% vote share mark, a 23 percentage points jump from its 2014 performance. While the 2019 results clearly show the BJP as an ascendant force at the cusp of power in the state, the party still lacks a political face to match Mamata Banerjee’s popularity. This is especially true in South Bengal, the biggest subregion in terms of seats, where the AITC managed to prevent a BJP surge even in 2019.

In Suvendu Adhikari, the BJP has been able to get an important mass leader in South Bengal. The BJP expects Adhikari to help it in bridging its deficit vis-a-vis the AITC in South Bengal. With Banerjee announcing her decision to contest from Nandigram, Adhikari will have to devote considerable time in his own AC now. That Banerjee announced her candidature from Nandigram on a day when Adhikari was doing a road show in Kolkata has conveyed this message clearly.