- Born:
- December 15, 1970, Karkuli, West Bengal, India (age 55)
- Title / Office:
- chief minister (2026-), West Bengal
- Political Affiliation:
- Bharatiya Janata Party
Suvendu Adhikari
Suvendu Adhikari (born December 15, 1970, Karkuli, West Bengal, India) is an Indian politician who belongs to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and is the chief minister of West Bengal (2026– ). He was the leader of the opposition in the eastern state of West Bengal from 2021–26. Regarded as a political heavyweight and the BJP’s most prominent face in the state, he unseated Mamata Banerjee in the Bhabanipur constituency in the 2026 legislative assembly elections. He also won from Nandigram, with his party securing a historic victory over Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress, ending its three-term rule in the state. Adhikari had defeated Banerjee in Nandigram in the 2021 election as well.
Early career and role in the Trinamool Congress
Suvendu Adhikari belongs to a family of politicians. His father, Sisir Adhikari, has served in the West Bengal legislative assembly as well as in the Lok Sabha (the lower house of the Indian Parliament), and one of his brothers, Dibyendu Adhikari, was elected to the state assembly and the Lok Sabha as a Trinamool Congress (TMC) member before he switched to the BJP in 2024.
Suvendu Adhikari’s career started with the Indian National Congress (Congress Party) in the municipal elections of 1995. Along with his father, he joined the newly-formed TMC in 1998. In 2006 he was elected to the West Bengal assembly from the Kanthi Dakshin constituency, a seat that had been previously held by his father. The Adhikaris played prominent strategic roles in the Singur and Nandigram agitations of 2006–07, which helped the TMC earn popular support against the long-standing Communist Party of India (Marxist), or CPI(M), government. Suvendu Adhikari, who had been elected to the Lok Sabha in 2009, was credited with disrupting the grassroots dominance of the CPI(M) and the Congress Party in several electorally significant districts in the state, including Purba (East) Medinipur, where Nandigram is located.
In 2006 the TMC was at the forefront of a protest movement by farmers and environmentalists in Singur, where the CPI(M)-led Left Front government had acquired agricultural land for a proposed plant to manufacture the Tata Group’s new Nano car. A similar protest took place in Nandigram, where the establishment of a planned chemical plant would mean the eviction of thousands of residents from their homes. In March 2007 police fired on protesters, killing 14 and injuring at least 70. Tata eventually relocated its Nano project to Gujarat, and the chemical plant at Nandigram was scrapped.
As a direct result of the Singur and Nandigram protests, the TMC secured a historic victory in the 2011 West Bengal election, unseating the CPI(M)-led Left Front, which had been in power for 34 years. Banerjee became the state’s first female chief minister. Adhikari, regarded as one of the key architects of the TMC win, resigned his Lok Sabha seat in 2016. That same year he won the election to the state legislative assembly from Nandigram, after which he was made minister of transport in Banerjee’s government.
Exit from TMC and role in the BJP
Adhikari’s influence within the TMC peaked after the exit of the party’s founding member, Mukul Roy, who joined the BJP in 2017. In parallel, however, cracks were beginning to form in the party hierarchy. Adhikari was among the TMC leaders linked to a Ponzi scheme, run by the Saradha Group, that was uncovered in 2013. He was also said to be growing disenchanted with Banerjee’s advancement of her nephew, Abhishek Banerjee, within the TMC leadership. In 2020 Adhikari and several others from the TMC joined the BJP, making the switch public at a rally held by Amit Shah, a top BJP leader and the union minister for home affairs.
The defections preceded the West Bengal assembly election of 2021, and Adhikari was seen as key to the BJP’s performance in the state. The TMC, however, passed the political test with flying colors, winning 213 seats of 294 compared to the BJP’s 77. The silver lining for the BJP was Adhikari’s defeat of Mamata Banerjee in a close contest in Nandigram. In the 2026 West Bengal election he ran for office from two battleground constituencies. He defeated Banerjee, this time in Bhabanipur, and repeated his success in Nandigram against his former aide, Pabitra Kar. Amid BJP’s electoral triumph in the state, Adhikari, who has played a central role in the party’s success, was sworn in as chief minister on May 9.