There is a simmering conflict, or rather a sub-surface tension between West Bengal transport minister Suvendu Adhikari and the ruling dispensation in the state-TMC. Adhikari had recently taken a dig at party colleagues for visiting Nandigram after a gap of 13 years just before the 2021 state polls.
This had evoked a sharp response from the TMC which hit back at Adhikari allegedly for “helping BJP” by negating the contributions of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee during the anti-land acquisition movement.
Indignation of TMC was exacerbated as Adhikari, who is one of the most influential members of the party did not once mention Banerjee or the party during a rally held by him to pay respect to martyrs of Bhumi Uchhed Pratirodh Committee (Land Eviction Resistance Committee) on ‘Nandigram Dibas’. It was on this particular day in 2007 that some BUPC members were killed in police firing.
Mamata Banerjee buoyed by the crest of the wave of the anti-farmland acquisition movement, had succeeded in dislodging the 34-year-long rule of the Left Front in the state in 2011.
In this context, there have been rumours that Adhikari might leave TMC and join BJP as he had held a separate rally in Nandigram independent from the TMC rally.
TMC MP from Serampore, Hooghly, Kalyan Banerjee had said that the transport minister Adhikari was very much with the ruling party. He added, “There is no question of Suvendu not being with our party. He is very much with the TMC. He is a bright leader, who can be an asset to any political party. Some people are trying to mislead the people about his future prospects”.
Hinting at the possibility of Adhikari leaving the ruling party, state BJP president Dilip Ghosh said, “TMC is like a cabbage. One by one its leaves are coming off. Once all leaves come off then there will be no cabbage.”
State Congress president and the party’s Lok Sabha leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said that Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee must remember Adhikari’s contribution to her rise to power. Chowdhury added, “Singur and Nandigram movements were crucial in shaping what TMC is today. In Nandigram, the Adhikari family played the most important role. But today no one is remembering their valuable contributions”.
Adhikari and TMC senior leader and state minister Firhad Hakim who had addressed two different rallies at Nandigram, on the same day, took potshots at each other without taking any names. Hakim and another TMC MP Dola Sen blamed Adhikari without naming him, for strengthening the “hands of the BJP”.
Adhikari, who has been maintaining a distance from TMC’s top leadership for the last few months, said that he will never use the BUPC platform for “vested political interests” and will announce his next course of action from a political platform.