The BJP’s decision to appoint Suvendu Adhikari as the West Bengal CM flows from a need to have a decisive leader at the helm who can steer the new government as it goes about fulfilling the primary promises it made in its manifesto about stopping the entry of undocumented immigrants from across the Bangladesh border and implementing the Uniform Civil Code (UCC), among other things.

Setting the tone, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who was the central observer at the meeting of the BJP Legislature Party on Friday, said, “Now infiltration and cow smuggling will become impossible in West Bengal.” In Bengal, one of the BJP’s main planks has been infiltration and the accompanying demographic changes.

Adhikari has governance experience — having been a minister in the second Trinamool Congress (TMC) government — and can deal with administrative issues with a strong hand.

By appointing Adhikari, the BJP also keeps its word that a Bengali will be the CM, thereby disproving the TMC’s election narrative that electing the party would mean handing over the state to “bohiragatos (outsiders)”. Adhikari is a leader who is quite in the mould of Mamata Banerjee — someone with a streetfighter mentality who is equally at ease running an administration.

BJP insiders said that with the new government expected to publish a white paper on the TMC’s corruption and set up a Commission — Adhikari reiterated this in his speech on Friday — several leaders of the Opposition party may come under the scanner. To see the party through such moves and the implementation of its other core agenda, it needed a resolute leader with convictions at the helm.

Having defeated Banerjee in two straight elections and by refusing to switch sides despite the post-poll violence five years ago — when many believed he would rejoin the TMC following the BJP’s failure to come to power — Adhikari endeared himself to the party’s rank and file. The party leadership calculated that it must factor it in when choosing the CM.

Though he came from another party, the RSS is also said to have found Adhikari, who describes himself as a “Sanatani”, an acceptable choice because of his relentless campaign pushing for “Hindu rejuvenation”. In 2024, he was at the forefront of protests against alleged atrocities faced by Hindus in Bangladesh and during the campaign, posters depicting him as “saviour of Hindus” came up in Nandigram. With him at the helm, the RSS believes that the government will address its core concerns and pursue its main agenda in the state.

Also, since this is the first time the BJP has come to power in Bengal, the party felt it necessary to choose a face who would be acceptable to all, instead of appointing a relatively unknown leader as it has done in some Hindi heartland states in the past few years.

As the government prepares to get going, it will face a host of challenges, from law-and-order to poor civic infrastructure and the state’s poor financial situation, a problem that became more strained in the last few years amid repeated run-ins between the Centre and the Mamata Banerjee government.

Apart from implementing UCC and tackling undocumented infiltration, the Adhikari government will also have to fulfil the BJP’s poll promise of implementing the 7th Pay Commission recommendations for government employees and clear pending Dearness Allowance arrears within 45 days of coming to power. In an affidavit to the courts, the previous government said this would cost the state exchequer an extra Rs 42,000 crore. However, given the poor revenue and high debt, fulfilling this would be a challenge.

Among the government’s priorities will also be ensuring the sporadic incidents of post-poll violence do not spiral out of control. On Wednesday night, Adhikari’s personal assistant Chandranath Rath was shot dead near Kolkata and catching the culprits quickly is likely to be top on the priority list of the police.

The government has to also fulfil, among other things, the BJP’s promise of a monthly financial assistance of Rs 3,000 to women that was announced as a counter to Banerjee’s Lakshmir Bhandar scheme, under which women used to get Rs 1,500 (women from SC and ST communities received Rs 1,700).

The BJP has also promised a monthly assistance of Rs 3,000 to unemployed youth (twice the amount the TMC has promised to pay), and figure out how to provide 1 crore new jobs and self-employment opportunities in the next five years to prevent large-scale migration.

The son of three-time MP Sisir Adhikari, who was the Union Minister of State for Rural Development in the UPA-2 government, Suvendu started his political journey with the Congress’s student wing Chhatra Parishad at a time when the Left was at the peak of its powers. He displayed an early talent for organising and a penchant for leadership, and two years after Banerjee formed the TMC, the Adhikaris joined the party in 2000.

This immediately provided the TMC with the toehold it required to challenge the CPI(M) party machinery in Purba Medinipur district. With Suvendu’s skills, the party slowly built itself up in the region and took on CPI(M) strongman and then Tamluk MP Lakshman Seth.

When the Nandigram agitation began in March 2007, a year after Singur, the TMC took the lead in the anti-land acquisition protests because of Suvendu. At the time, the CPI (Maoist) was also involved in the agitation and developed links with leaders of the TMC and the Bhumi Ucched Pratirodh Committee (BUPC). The BUPC, or the Committee against Land Evictions, was a coalition of locals and various parties that had come together to stop the acquisition of land for a Special Economic Zone. Suvendu was one of the key figures in the BUPC.

Apart from his organising skills, which many in the TMC acknowledged when he left the party in 2020, his straightforward speeches in a rural accent and streetfighter image helped him gain a following. A shrewd tactician, Suvendu used the Nandigram movement as a springboard, consolidating power for himself and the party in the districts of Purba Medinipur, Paschim Medinipur, Bankura, and Purulia, going all the way up to Malda and Murshidabad. Though initially seen as a local strongman, he eventually created a base well outside his home turf.

His political rise led him to Delhi after he defeated his old rival, Lakshman Seth, from Tamluk in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections. He retained the seat again in 2014, even as the Congress-led UPA was voted out and the BJP came to power. Following Mukul Roy’s exit from the TMC in 2017, Suvendu became one of the chief strategists of the party, bringing both muscle and political shrewdness to the table.

However, he started drifting away from Mamata Banerjee after she brought up her nephew Abhishek Banerjee and installed him as her second-in-command, a position Suvendu had held till then, almost by default. He quit the party in  December 2020.