Suvendu Adhikari breaks silence on defeating WB CM Mamata Banerjee in Nandigram nail-biter

In an interesting battle that saw many twists and turns leading to a nail-biting finish, BJP's Suvendu Adhikari has beaten Trinamool Congress supremo and the incumbent CM Mamata Banerjee in the Nandigram constituency. After a close contest between the two heavyweights, Suvendu Adhikari defeated Mamata Banerjee by a small margin of 1,736 votes. The BJP leader took to Twitter to post a picture of a sheet presumably of the vote-counting calculation, that showed him with more votes than Mamata Banerjee.

In another tweet, Adhikari thanked the people of Nandigram for reposing their faith in him. "This victory is the victory of every person in Nandigram and my determination is to work for the development of Nandigram in the coming days," he tweeted in Bengali.

The prolonged Nandigram suspense

A little earlier in the evening, it came as a surprise when reports emerged declaring Mamata Banerjee as the winner, after trailing her confidante turned rival Adhikari for most of the day. However, it was then found out that the counting of votes for the Nandigram constituency was still underway with continued suspense as to who could be the ultimate winner. 

Mamata Banerjee in her victory speech in the press conference highlighted the party's massive win against the BJP, but also cried foul over the Nandigram's personal defeat. She also asserted her intention of challenging the loss at the Supreme Court.

Banerjee, who had been wheelchair-bound for a significant part of the election due to a leg injury, was seen hale and hearty, walking outside her residence along with nephew Abhishek Banerjee.

The West Bengal elections

Although Mamata Banerjee lost the high-intensity Nandigram battle, the election commission trends at the time of writing the article show TMC winning 69 seats and leading at 147, while the BJP has won 16 and leading on 58, which is a significant rise as compared to the 2016 election tally of 4 seats, but not at all close to their claims of reaching the half-way mark to form the government in the state.

Accepting its defeat, the BJP said it has reached the milestone of becoming the opposition party in Bengal. “We got the responsibility of becoming the opposition party in the state and we will do everything to serve the people and help Mamata Didi to fight COVID-19 and all other work required to serve the public,” the BJP said in a press conference on the result day.

Bengal witnessed a vigorous contest between the ruling Trinamool and BJP across eight phases held from March to April. The election witnessed incidents of political violence, blame game and mudslinging in the runup to the election which continued even during the results day. 

Various political leaders from across party lines have congratulated Mamata Banerjee for her landslide victory in the polls. From Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal to RJD’s Tejashwi Yadav and SP chief Akhilesh Yadav congratulated the TMC Supremo.