All India Trinamool Congress chairperson Mamata Banerjee led her party to one of its biggest political victories in the past three decades by single-handedly stopping the BJP juggernaut in Bengal, paving the way for her return as Chief Minister for a third consecutive term. Mamata Banerjee on Sunday won a landslide victory in Bengal but lost in a cliffhanger in Nandigram to the BJP’s Suvendu Adhikari, her former protege. “I accept the verdict in Nandigram – it is not a big deal. Don’t worry,” said the Chief Minister, declaring, however, that she would approach the court over “mischief”. The Nandigram assembly constituency in East Midnapore district, about 125 km from Kolkata, was considered the biggest battleground where sitting chief minister Mamata Banerjee had challenged her turncoat.
Several netizens have posted a picture of Mamata and Suvendu with a caption in Hindi which translates to, “Is she shameless? She has been defeated by 1,622 votes, but will now take back her words as she’d said she would quit politics if defeated in Nandigram.” Though, the viral claim is fake. It was not Mamata but BJP’s Suvendu Adhikari who had said that he would defeat her by 50,000 votes or quit politics. Suvendu beat Mamata in Nandigram by a narrow margin of 1,956 votes.
Suvendu Adhikari, the former member and a trusted associate of Mamata Banerjee ditched her to cross over to the BJP He became an MLA in the constituency and for years, the Adhikari family had a firm grip over Nandigram. In this election, he was weaponised by the BJP against the Chief Minister, who was pitched as an “outsider” in Nandigram.
The Nandigram controversy started when the 66-year-old Chief Minister suffered a leg injury; she accused the BJP of a role in the incident, in which her leg was allegedly crushed by her car door by the press of a large crowd and she was bed ridden for several days. For the rest of the campaign, she was in a wheelchair, taking on the collective might of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah and multiple BJP leaders from outside.
Suvendu Adhikari was declared winner by 1,956 votes, not long after the Trinamool tweeted: “The counting process for Nandigram has not been completed. Please do not speculate.” Late in the night, the Election Commission rejected the party’s request for a recount. When the results seemed to be going the way of her former lieutenant, she shrugged it off. In a tweet on Sunday, Mr Adhikari thanked the “great people of Nandigram for their love, trust, blessings, and support”.
“Let the Nandigram people give whatever verdict they want, I accept that. Nandigram was a sacrifice that was needed in the larger victory. We have won the state,” she said.
Suvendu Adhikari’s switch to the BJP in December led to mass defections that left Ms Banerjee without many of her loyal aides.
“Whatever happened is for the best. I will not have to go that far regularly now, I am saved in that way. But I will go to the court because I have heard there were some malpractices,” she said.
Though the throat-cut competition has come to an end but there are still several cases being reported of the post-poll violence between the opposition parties.
