Standing in the West Bengal Assembly on Wednesday, Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari asked Mamata Banerjee to retire from electoral politics and rest at home, explaining why he chose to retain Bhabanipur in south Kolkata and vacate Nandigram instead.Adhikari said he did not want to give Banerjee another opportunity to contest a bypoll. āI thank the people of Nandigram, who were quite upset with me and told me that I could have given up Bhabanipur. I explained to them that if I had given up Bhabanipur, the person who has lost to me twice might have got another chance to contest the election,ā he said.Adhikari was referring to his victories over the former Bengal Chief Minister in Nandigram in the 2021 Assembly elections and in Bhabanipur in the recent polls.Highlighting his decisive victory over Banerjee in her south Kolkata stronghold, Adhikari urged her not to contest another election, saying she was around 75 years old and should stay at home and rest instead of returning to the electoral arena.
Adhikari was speaking after Hasirani Rath, the mother of his former aide Chandranath Rath, and Shankharav Sarkar were sworn in as BJP MLAs in the Assembly. They won the Nandigram and Rejinagar bypolls, respectively, earlier this month, allowing the BJP to highlight its record victory margin in Nandigram and its breakthrough in Muslim-majority Rejinagar.Adhikari also sought to reassure Nandigram residents who, according to him, were unhappy with his decision to leave the constituency.
He said he had explained why the move was necessary and promised to fulfil his commitments to them through Hasirani Rath. He said Nandigram had elected Rath by a margin of 1.22 lakh votes and asserted that he would honour his promises to the constituency through the newly elected MLA.Adhikari also raised questions about the murder of Chandranath Rath, who was shot dead in Madhyamgram on May 6, a few days after the BJP came to power in West Bengal.
He alleged that Rath was killed because he had worked as his aide.According to Adhikari, the CBI has arrested seven people, including alleged shooters and contract killers. He said the investigation still needed to establish the source of the alleged Rs 2 crore paid for the contract killing.Asking whether the money had come from Camac Street, Kalighat or Diamond Harbour, Adhikari said the probe would be complete once the source was identified.His remarks appeared to refer to Camac Street, associated with TMC MP Abhishek Banerjee's office; Kalighat, where Mamata Banerjee lives; and Diamond Harbour, Abhishek Banerjee's Lok Sabha constituency.
The investigation is yet to establish the source of the alleged payment or identify those who commissioned the killing. The term *supari* is commonly used to refer to a contract killing or a hired hit.The two bypoll victories gave the BJP an opportunity to claim that its electoral presence was expanding beyond its traditional support base.
The results were the first major electoral test for the BJP government, nearly five months after it ended the Trinamool Congress's 15-year rule in the state.Adhikari claimed the opposition had failed to mount an effective challenge in either constituency. He said it had left the battlefield in Nandigram even before polling, while its candidate in Rejinagar failed to retain the security deposit.The Rejinagar result was central to Adhikari's claim that the BJP was attracting voters beyond its conventional base, as Muslims form a substantial majority of the constituency's electorate.Rejecting allegations that the BJP was communal and opposed to minorities, Adhikari cited the support the party had allegedly received from Muslim women covered by the Annapurna scheme.
He said political opponents had built their campaigns around portraying the BJP as communal.Adhikari said 70,000 women in Rejinagar had received benefits under the Annapurna scheme, including 35,000 from minority families. Of the constituency's 300 polling booths, he said, 200 were in minority-dominated areas.
Despite this, BJP candidate Shakharav Sarkar won by 75,000 votes, he claimed.Adhikari argued that development and welfare benefits, rather than religious identity, had influenced voters. He said BJP members were Hindus and Sanatanis who wore the *tilak*, but the party prioritised people's needs while governing.Adhikari also said the BJP government's first six months represented only the beginning of its development plans.
Using a meal analogy, he described the work completed so far as merely tea and biscuits, saying breakfast and lunch were yet to be served. He urged people to continue watching the state's development.Adhikari's remarks combined a defence of his decision to leave Nandigram, questions over the alleged contract killing of Chandranath Rath and claims that the BJP's victories in Nandigram and Rejinagar reflected its expanding electoral support and development agenda.- EndsInputs from