After Nandigram Win, Suvendu Adhikari Becomes Leader of Oppn in WB

In a neck-and-neck contest in Nandigram, Adhikari won over Mamata Banerjee by a slender margin of 1,956 votes.

Calling Mamata a ‘Begum’, Suvendu allegedly said her win would turn the state into a ‘mini-Pakistan.’

(Photo Courtesy: Twitter/@NisithPramanik)

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Suvendu Adhikari, who won the election against Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee from the high-profile Nandigram seat, was picked as the Leader of Opposition in the West Bengal Assembly on Monday, 10 May.

Adhikari, who used to be a minister in the previous TMC government, had switched sides to the BJP ahead of the 2021 Assembly elections and was considered a key asset for the saffron party going into the polls.

In a neck-and-neck contest in Nandigram, he won over the TMC supremo by a slender margin of 1,956 votes.

The TMC, otherwise, scored a decisive victory in the elections, winning 213 of the 292 seats, while the BJP failed to reach the three-digit mark, even though it made massive gains from the 2016 elections with 77 seats.

Also on Monday, forty-three leaders of the TMC were sworn in as ministers in the state government. Of these, while 25 are incumbents, 18 are new faces.

Reported instances of post-poll violence in West Bengal have dominated the headlines ever since the results for the elections were declared, with the BJP and the state Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar taking on the Mamata Banerjee government over the issue.