West Bengal CM Suvendu Adhikari to retain Bhabanipur Assembly seat, give up Nandigram

West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari on Wednesday said that he will retain the Bhabanipur Assembly constituency and give up Nandigram among the two seats he won in the recently-concluded elections, PTI reported.

The Bharatiya Janata Party leader took oath in the Assembly as an MLA from Bhabanipur.

“Someone else will be elected as MLA from Nandigram [in a bye-election],” the newspaper quoted Adhikari as telling reporters outside the Assembly. “But I will not let the people there feel my absence.”

On May 4, the BJP defeated the Trinamool Congress in the Assembly elections, ending the 15-year rule of the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress Party.

Adhikari defeated Banerjee by more than 15,000 votes in Bhabanipur and defeated the TMC’s Pabitra Kar by 9,665 votes in Nandigram.

On Saturday, he took oath as the chief minister of West Bengal, becoming the first BJP leader to hold the post.

Adhikari, who was a minister in the Banerjee government, quit the TMC and joined the BJP in 2020.
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