Medinipur witnesses rise of saffronised Suvendu

Suvendu Adhikari who recently resigned from Trinamool Congress (TMC) has officially joined BJP in the presence of Union Home Minister and party chief Amit Shah at College Ground in Paschim Medinipur. He wrote a letter to party workers asking them to join hands with him and “start a new beginning.” writes ETV Bharat's Shirsendu Chakraborty.

Kolkata: The Trinamool supremo probably had never thought that Nandigram would give her this jolt! Nandigram was always her soft spot. Nandigram and Singur her catapulted her to the hustings of Bengal in 2011. The same land of Nandigram was now turning claustrophobic.

The clock briefly stopped for Mamata Banerjee at 2.53 pm today when most media outlets across the country were beaming pictures of Suvendu Adhikari picking up the BJP party flag from Amit Shah. The claustrophobia had increased.

Nandigram and Singur had proved to be the nemesis of the Left Front. But, Mamata's man from Nandigram, who had single-handedly turned the tides in favour of her in 2010-11, was now crossing over to the BJP. Incidentally, it was Nandigram which had made a leader out of Suvendu Adhikari. Had there been no political movement surrounding the proposed land acquisition in that hamlet in Purba Medinipur district, probably Suvendu would have never come out of his calm and serene self to become a fire-guzzling leader.

Suvendu's father Sisir Adhikari was never a big Congress name from the erstwhile Congress stronghold of Medinipur. In fact, he was more of a businessman who frequently visited Kolkata for work and got close to some Congress leaders. Still, he was mostly restricted to panchayat-level politics but was a diligent fundraiser for the party. And he also got introduced to Mamata since then. When Mamata floated her Trinamool Congress, Sisir was with her and he eventually became a Lok Sabha MP and with that, the Adhikari-family of Medinipur gained a good standing in the district.

Yet, amid all this, the second son of the family was not much interested in politics. He was more into religious thinking, frequenting the local Ramakrishna Mission with his closely cropped hair. Family members always found him more at ease with monks and the Mission work, than what was happening in the corridors of power. Suvendu still sports a closely cropped hairstyle and his close-quarters confide in private that his inclination towards religious thoughts was such that he never thought much about marriage.

But, Nandigram changed all that.

The campaign against land acquisition in Nandigram was first started by CPI(ML) Liberation, which was later on hijacked by Mamata. And she had handed over the reins of her campaign to Suvendu, the youth face from Purba Medinipur. Since then, it was only Suvendu Adhikari. Sisir Adhikari eventually came to be known as Suvendu's father and not the other way round.

The Nandigram campaign had brought Mamata and Suvendu close. From being South Kanthi's MLA to decimating CPI(M)'s strongman Laxman Seth from the Tamluk Lok Sabha seat and then again winning the Nandigram Assembly seat to becoming a minister in Mamata's cabinet, Suvendu was on a roll. Mamata had entrusted her with party affairs in Bankura, Malda and Murshidabad, alongside Medinipur. Simply put, Suvendu never failed or disheartened his leader.

When it came to poaching leaders from the Left and Congress, Mamata turned to her most trusted duo – Mukul Roy and Suvendu Adhikari. Mukul had gone the saffron way some time back. Today, it was Suvendu.

The same Suvendu, whom Mamata had personally chosen to lead the students' and youth in front of the party, albeit with her nephew Abhishek Banerjee. Adhikari and Banerjee were to nurture future leaders of Trinamool. But, the chemistry never clicked between the two 'princes' of Mamata. During her signature July 21 rally in 2011, which Mamata had said will be held under the banner of Yuva Trinamool, Suvendu was a natural choice to lead as he was the Yuva TMC president. But, the entire state saw a different leader on stage and mysteriously Suvendu was missing from the entire show. Many feel, the seeds of discontent was sown then. Others feel that Mamata's attempt to tie both Abhishek and Suvendu with one band was only to ease the pressure on her nephew. The move boomeranged as Mamata returned to the hustings in 2016. Abhishek's growth in the party knew no bounds and Suvendu started going more in oblivion. Only to emerge as his leader's future bête-noire.

Political observers in Kolkata feel that, if Mamata had offered the deputy chief minister's post or the state home minister's portfolio to Suvendu, she would not have witnessed the debacle of 2019. From 34 seats in 2014, she slipped to 22 in 2019.

The land of Medinipur and Nandigram had once made Mamata Banerjee an undisputed leader of Bengal and then the Chief Minister. Today, Amit Shah chose the same ground to give a clarion call for change in the 2021 Assembly polls of Bengal.

Will the change really come? Will the rumblings within the Trinamool that has been stoked by Suvendu, gain more steam? And will there really be a saffron wave in Bengal in 2021? These questions are still doing the rounds even as the dust settled on the Medinipur College grounds today.