Kolkata, March 15 – The Leader of the Opposition (LoP) in the West Bengal Assembly, Suvendu Adhikari, clarified on Sunday about the possibility of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leadership asking him to contest from two Assembly constituencies simultaneously in the upcoming state elections.
One of the two constituencies will certainly be Nandigram in East Midnapore district, where Adhikari has been a two-time legislator – first for the Trinamool Congress from 2016 to 2021, and then for the BJP from 2021 to the present. The second constituency is Bhabanipur in South Kolkata, where the current elected legislator is the Chief Minister, Mamata Banerjee.
When asked about this possibility in the afternoon, Adhikari neither denied nor confirmed it. “In the BJP, it is always a collective decision that matters. Candidate selection is also done accordingly. The BJP might or might not even ask me to contest this time. As a member of the BJP, I will accept the decision.”
However, he said that personally, he would prefer to contest from Nandigram this time as well. “Nandigram is my first choice. If the party leadership asks me to contest from any other seat as well, I will definitely consider it,” he added while specifying any second Assembly constituency from where he would contest this time.
As a reminder, Adhikari was re-elected as a legislator from Nandigram in 2021, defeating then Trinamool Congress candidate and current Chief Minister, Mamata Banerjee.
Subsequently, she was elected from Bhabanipur in a by-election and retained her position as Chief Minister for the third consecutive term.
Political observers feel that this time, Bhabanipur might be a tougher stronghold for the Chief Minister, considering that already 47,111 voters have been deleted from the constituency in the final voter list, which was published on February 28, and another 14,154 voters from that constituency are currently under judicial scrutiny.
In such a situation, if Adhikari contests from Bhabanipur along with Nandigram, it will be a highly tactical move by the BJP to limit the movement of Mamata Banerjee within that constituency during the campaign phase, leaving little room for her to campaign across the state.