Suvendu trains guns on Mamata’s Bhabanipur, TMC zooms in on Nandigram

Kolkata: The political chessboard in West Bengal is being redrawn with opposition leader Suvendu Adhikari turning his sights on Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s constituency Bhabanipur, while TMC top brass has sharpened its focus on the BJP leader’s bastion Nandigram.

According to BJP insiders, Adhikari has commissioned a “special survey” in Bhabanipur to map booth-level strengths and weaknesses, studying where the chief minister’s party led in 2021 and where it lagged.

“Suvendu Adhikari is clear; Mamata Banerjee cannot have a free run in Bhabanipur. We are gathering every single voter detail, and even considering a dedicated office in the constituency,” a senior BJP functionary said.

Adhikari, the Leader of the Opposition in the West Bengal Assembly, has thrown down the gauntlet.

Speaking recently about the possibility of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bengal, he had warned, “Thousands of fake names will be deleted this time. We will ensure Mamata Banerjee loses this time from this seat”.

The Trinamool Congress, on the contrary, is quietly but steadily shifting gears in Nandigram, where Mamata’s dramatic face-off with Adhikari in 2021 ended in the latter’s narrow victory by 1,956 votes, a result still pending in court.

Party insiders said top brass, including TMC’s national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee, has begun holding back-to-back meetings with district leaders and block-level organisers to “strengthen the ground” in Adhikari’s turf.

“In the last few weeks, top party leaders like Abhishek Banerjee have met leaders from several organisational districts including Tamluk. He has made it clear that Nandigram requires a separate, focused strategy. A special meeting with booth presidents and grassroots leaders will be called soon,” a TMC leader said.

The symbolism of the two battlefronts is not lost on either camp ahead of the assembly elections due next year.

While Bhabanipur has been Mamata Banerjee’s fortress for over a decade, Nandigram remains etched as the site of her fiercest political gamble, a risk that backfired in 2021.

The BJP taunts her as “a compartmental chief minister” who lost her own chosen battlefield, while the TMC jibes back at Adhikari as the “load-shedding opposition leader”, referring to allegations of irregularities committed during a power cut when counting of votes was on.

Political observers say the duel is fast acquiring the colour of a prestige battle within a larger war.

“It is no longer just Bhabanipur versus Nandigram. It is Mamata versus Suvendu, and Abhishek versus Suvendu. Both sides want to prove that the other’s stronghold is not impregnable,” said political analyst Biswanath Chakraborty.

For now, the spotlight is on TMC’s next move in Nandigram.

As a senior TMC leader put it, “The party high command knows that defeating Suvendu in his own backyard will have far greater impact than just numbers. It will be political payback.

Nandigram, once the scene of one of the bloodiest movements against land acquisition by a government for industrialisation in independent India, shot to national limelight in 2007 with its stir, jolting the mighty Left Front and laying the foundation for the TMC rule in the state, with Mamata Banerjee spearheading the agitation. Adhikari was then her trusted lieutenant in Nandigram.

He switched over to the BJP in December 2020, just months ahead of the assembly polls.