Bengal CM Adhikari to retain Bhabanipur Assembly segment, give up Nandigram

West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari announced on Wednesday (May 13, 2026) that he will retain the Bhabanipur Assembly segment and give up Nandigram. He took an oath in the Legislative Assembly as an MLA from the Bhabanipur constituency.

He won both the Bhabanipur and Nandigram seats in the recently-concluded Assembly polls and took oath in the State Assembly as an MLA from Bhabanipur on Wednesday (May 13).

"Someone else will be elected as MLA from Nandigram [in a bypoll]. But I will not let the people there feel my absence.”

"I will fulfil all development promises I made to the people of Nandigram alongside the rest of the state,” Mr. Adhikari told reporters at the Assembly premises.

Referring to the 2009-2016 tenure of Phiroja Bibi as a TMC MLA from Nandigram when Mr. Adhikari was a frontline leader of Mamata Banerjee's party, he said, "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. I will play a similar role this time as well."

Mr. Adhikari defeated TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee in her Bhabanipur bastion in the recently concluded Assembly polls by a margin of 15,105 in a teeterboard battle while defending his own keep of Nandigram by 9,665 over his nearest rival, Pabitra Kar of the Trinamool Congress.