West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari on Wednesday said that he will retain the Bhabanipur assembly seat and give up Nandigram instead. In the recently concluded election, Adhikari won from both the Bhabanipur and Nandigram seats.

He defeated former Chief Minister and his mentor-turned-rival, Mamata Banerjee, in Bhabanipur by a margin of more than 15,000 votes. Adhikari was also able to defend Nandigram by defeating TMC's Pabitra Kar by a margin of 9,665 votes. 

He took oath in the state assembly as an MLA from Bhabanipur. Along with Adhikari, five newly elected legislators took the oath in the state assembly. These are Agnimitra Paul, Dilip Ghosh, Ashok Kirtania, Kshudiram Tudu, and Nisith Pramanik.

"Someone else will be elected as MLA from Nandigram (in a bypoll). But I will not let the people there feel my absence during the next five years," he told reporters. 

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"I will fulfil all development promises I made to the people of Nandigram alongside the rest of the state," Suvendu Adhikari added. 

Furthermore, Adhikari said that he provided all support to TMC MLA Phiroja Bibi from 2009-16 when he was a top leader in the Mamata Banerjee-led party. 

"I had provided all support to Phiroja Bibi, the mother of a martyr in the 2008 Nandigram police firing, although I wasn't officially the MLA from that seat."

On Monday, West Bengal's Chief Election Officer (CEO) Manoj Agarwal was appointed as the chief secretary of the state government. The 1990-batch IAS officer of the West Bengal cadre helmed the special intensive revision (SIR) exercise in the state in the run-up to the assembly polls, in which nearly 91 lakh voters were removed from the electoral rolls. 

After the recently concluded assembly polls, the BJP came to power for the first time in West Bengal after handing a stunning defeat to the Trinamool Congress. The saffron party secured 207 seats in the 294-member assembly, reducing the TMC to 80 seats.

Published on: May 13, 2026 2:43 PM IST