Suvendu Adhikari warns Mamata Banerjee after BJP’s Delhi win: ‘You’re next’

Adhikari, who was once the right-hand man of Mamata Banerjee and exited TMC after a bitter conflict, said,  “Look out, you (Mamata Banerjee) are next.”

Speaking to reporters after the BJP’s resounding victory, Adhikari proclaimed, “Delhi’s win is ours… In 2026, it will be Bengal’s turn.” Echoing his confidence, Bengal BJP chief Sukanta Majumdar asserted that the people of Bengal would rally behind the party in the next state election.

Both leaders expressed gratitude to the Bengali community in Delhi for the BJP’s success, though it remains unclear whether their votes primarily favoured the BJP or the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which was supported by Banerjee.

The BJP’s dominant performance in Delhi—securing 48 of 70 seats, up from eight in 2020—dealt a crushing blow to AAP, which saw its leaders, Arvind Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia, lose their seats.

Adhikari’s remarks come in the lead-up to the 2026 Bengal elections, underscoring the BJP’s push to unseat Banerjee and her Trinamool Congress (TMC), a formidable opponent to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party over the past decade.

Despite facing BJP challenges, Banerjee has secured three major electoral victories against the saffron party—the 2019 and 2024 Lok Sabha polls and the 2021 Bengal Assembly election—while also delivering a near-complete rout of the BJP in the 2021 Kolkata municipal polls.

In the 2019 general election, the TMC edged past the BJP by four seats. However, by 2024, Banerjee widened the gap, clinching 29 seats to the BJP’s 12.

The 2021 Bengal Assembly elections further reinforced her hold, as the BJP was decisively defeated.

These hard-fought victories have been marred by intense clashes between the two parties, with allegations of post-poll violence, including gunfights, mob attacks, and bombings targeting workers and supporters from both sides.

Tensions escalated further following high-profile controversies in Banerjee’s administration, such as the rape and murder of a young doctor at Kolkata’s RG Kar Hospital last year and sexual assault allegations in Sandeshkhali involving TMC leader Sheikh Shahjahan.

Adhikari, once a close aide of Banerjee before defecting to the BJP in 2020, has been a vocal critic of her leadership.

Speaking on the Sandeshkhali scandal last month, he asserted that the BJP would ensure her imprisonment for falsely implicating these women, vowing to take revenge with interest.

His recent jabs at Banerjee are particularly notable given her support for AAP in Delhi—a move that created friction within the INDIA opposition bloc after a failed seat-sharing deal with the Congress.

This division arguably contributed to AAP’s crushing defeat, as Congress candidates split votes in multiple constituencies.

The INDIA alliance, formed in 2023 to challenge the BJP in state and national elections, has struggled to gain momentum, with repeated electoral losses fueling doubts over Congress’s leadership of the bloc.

Banerjee has since emerged as a possible alternative leader—an outcome the BJP would prefer to avoid, as it could complicate both its 2026 Bengal campaign and its preparations for the 2029 general election.