A day after the Nandigram firing on March 14, 2007, which claimed 14 lives and left many injured – Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee along with a large number of supporters stormed into the ‘liberated zone’ to stand beside the victims’ family members.
People at Nandigram in East Midnapore were against the land acquisition process of the Left Front government for a special economic zone (SEZ).
Mamata’s convoy started from the Green Valley Resort, which is nearly 54 kilometres from the Nandigram police station. The place was chosen for Mamata’s stay considering the volatile situation in and around the region.
She reached Nandigram in the afternoon and while interacting with the victims at the Hospital, Mamata complained of suffocation and mild chest pain. A man in his thirties – wearing a crisp white kurta – was noticeably looking tense among many.
He immediately arranged a special ward at the Nandigram sub-divisional hospital where Mamata was rushed and put on oxygen support. The scene outside the hospital was tense and the man in the white kurta was equally stressed.
“Please don’t raise slogans as Didi needs some rest. The world is watching Nandigram and our movement. Didi is fine. Let Didi come out of the hospital, we will march towards Sonachura, Bhangabera, Garchakraberia, Tekhali, Tengua, Khejuri and Gelimgham to show solidarity to our brother and sisters,” he said.
Three days later on March 17, 2007, after the Nandigram firing, there was major chaos at the Sonachura market when three Krishi Jami Bachao Committee (KJBC) leaders identified as Gaur Hari Barik, Purna Pal and Buddhadeb Mirda, were allegedly kidnapped by the CPI(M) cadres and taken towards Khejuri.
Again this man – who joined Mamata’s camp in 2000 after leaving Congress – swung into action.
He asked his men to start a massive hunt to find out the ‘kidnapped’ KJBC leaders. He informed the local police who later rescued all the victims from an abandoned house in Khejuri.
Be it every movement, political and public meetings, this man was seen standing beside Mamata Banerjee in her bad and good times as her shadow.
Years have passed since then and the rise of this man in Midnapore has certainly helped Mamata secure the power of corridors in Bengal as Didi ended the 34-year rule of the Left Front government with a huge mandate in 2011.
Needless to say, the man is none other than Suvendu Adhikari.
His effort to strengthen TMC in the Rarh region didn’t go unnoticed and he got his due respect. From Member of Parliament, to state minister, to chairperson of cooperative banks – Mamata rewarded him for his struggle in Nandigram.
Many believed that Suvendu earned it, but equally agreed that it was the TMC which gave him the platform to show his political acumen.
So what went wrong after twenty years of his association with the Trinamool Congress? What prompted him to distance himself from Mamata Banerjee? And why is the Bharatiya Janata Party leaving no stone unturned to rope him in?
Many in the party believe – Suvendu who was in two minds – finally decided to say goodbye to the TMC when most of the old guard, including him, were replaced with new faces as in-charge of the districts on July 23, 2020.
That was the last nail in the coffin.
Since then, Suvendu was not happy with the ‘attitude’ of a few TMC leaders. On several occasions he had hinted that he would only listen to Mamata Banerjee and no one else, but then he started receiving commands from others in the party.
Countering Suvendu’s claim, many in the party said that he had distanced himself from the party since 2017.
It was at the Netaji Indoor Stadium in Kolkata during the TMC organisational meet on April 21, 2017, when Mamata Banerjee – during her speech against the Central Bureau of Investigation’s alleged highhandedness – suddenly asked, “Where is Suvendu?”
She noticed that Suvendu was missing when she asked her MPs and MLAs, chargesheeted in the Narada case, to stand up on the dais. All of them immediately stood up, but Mamata found Suvendu (also named in the CBI chargesheet) missing.
One of the party leaders told her that Suvendu was not well and Mamata continued her speech without pushing the matter further. But his absence gave a strong signal that everything was not well within the party.
A few months later, in September 2017, Suvendu was examined by the Enforcement Directorate in the Narada case.
Recently, the situation turned bitter, after Mamata sprung a surprise by sending show-cause notices to nearly 200 TMC workers and leaders just from Nandigram, the area which Suvendu is emotionally connected with.
Despite receiving complaints over an alleged ration scam from various parts, Mamata’s crackdown in Nandigram drew the attention of political observers in West Bengal.
Amid speculation over Suvendu’s situation in the party, he once again put the Trinamool in an uncomfortable situation after he gave a miss to a government programme in Jhargram on August 9, 2020, to mark the International Day of World’s Indigenous People.
He was supposed to be present at the official event along with state education minister and Trinamool secretary general Partha Chatterjee, but instead he attended another private event at nearby Sido Kanhu Hall at Sialgeria Maidan in the same district.
Since 2017, Suvendu’s absence from crucial party meetings created anxiety in the party as many felt that such a gesture may go against them ahead of the crucial assembly polls in Bengal in 2021.
And, they were right.
Twenty years of Suvendu’s association with Didi came to an end on November 27, 2020, when he resigned from Mamata’s cabinet.
The eighteen days following his resignation were followed with heaps of praises from BJP leaders about his political clout in Bengal and a call from BJP national secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya to convey birthday wishes to him on December 15 and centrally approved Z-category security clear the air over his future political situation in Bengal.
It is likely that he will share the dais with Amit Shah in Midnapore on December 19 where the union home minister will hold a public rally.
But why despite Suvendu’s perceived poor performance as district in-charge in Purulia, Jhargram, Murshidabad, Malda, East Midnapore, West Midnapore, Bankura and Bishnupur in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections is the BJP so keen to have Suvendu on its side?
The answer is Mamata came to power riding the waves of anti-land acquisition movements in Nandigram and Singur and the BJP wants to hit it hard where it will hurt the most – with a strong anti-incumbency message.
Not only that – it will also send a strong message to the masses to wonder and speculate why people are leaving the TMC and gravitating towards the BJP.
The ground situation suggests that, like many state chief ministers, Mamata also adopted several reforms to ensure good governance and punished those indulging in malpractices.
But drawing more TMC leaders, apart from Suvendu, a few months ahead of the polls is the BJP’s well-scripted plan to propagate the idea that the Trinamool is a sinking ship and the voters only have one option, to vote for the saffron party.
“They can win the 2021 assembly polls only by creating a rift in the TMC camp in Bengal. The same thing happened during the Lok Sabha polls when they poached some of our strong leaders and got away with 18 seats. Here, it is not a question of Suvendu’s strengths, weaknesses and failures during the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. It is about the BJP’s ploy to break the TMC from top to bottom. Otherwise it will be an impossible task for them to win the polls. They don’t even have public faces to contest from all the 294 assembly seats in Bengal. The BJP has done this dirty politics in other states and now it is doing it in Bengal,” a senior TMC MLA said.
A quick look at Suvendu’s performance in the 2019 Lok Sabha revealed that the TMC lost nine Lok Sabha seats out of the 13 in the region where he is known as a mass leader and believed to have significant clout among the people in Purulia, Jhargram, Murshidabad, Malda, East Midnapore, West Midnapore, Bankura and Bishnupur.
There is one Lok Sabha and nine assembly seats in Purulia, while in Murshidabad there are three Lok Sabha and 19 assembly seats. In Malda, there are two Lok Sabha and 12 assembly seats and in East Midnapore there are two Lok Sabha and 15 assembly seats.
In Bankura and in Bishnupur (combined) there are two Lok Sabha and 12 assembly seats, while in West Midnapore, there are two Lok Sabha and 15 assembly seats. In Jhargram, there is one Lok Sabha and four assembly seats.
In total, there are 13 Lok Sabha seats and 86 assembly seats in Purulia, Murshidabad, Malda, West Midnapore, Jhargram, East Midnapore, Bankura and Bishnupur where Suvendu Adhikari is believed to be an excellent taskmaster in booth management.
However, going by the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, except four seats – which are Kanthi (won by Suvendu’s father Sishir Adhikari on a TMC ticket, but BJP gained a 33.54 per cent vote share while Sishir lost a 3.82 per cent vote share), Tamluk (won by Suvendu’s brother Dibyendu on a TMC ticket, but BJP gained a 30.54 per cent vote share while Dibyendu lost a 3.52 per cent vote share), Jangipur (won by TMC’s Khalilur Rahman who defeated BJP’s Mafuja Khatun), and Murshidabad (won by TMC’s Abu Taher Khan) – the rest were lost by the ruling TMC.
So the BJP on its own managed to win a significant seven out of 13 seats (two seats including Berhampur and Malda South went to the Congress) and made deep inroads into these districts which are supposedly Suvendu Adhikari’s bastion.
Now all eyes will be on Amit Shah’s Bengal visit on December 18 and his public rally and roadshow in Midnapore and Bolpur on December 19 and 20 respectively.
There is speculation that apart from Suvendu, many other TMC leaders may join the BJP in the presence of Shah, giving more jolts to the Trinamool.
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