Bengal Assembly polls: Meet Suvendu's father Sisir Adhikari

Normally, the phrase used is 'like father, like son', but in the case of Sisir Adhikari, the story is more of a father resembling the actions of his son, Trinamool Congress (TMC) turncoat and BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari.

On March 21, Sisir, a former TMC MP, joined the BJP in presence of Union Home Minister Amit Shah. He joined the saffron party at a BJP rally at Egra in the East Medinipur district.

Sisir said that he had given his all to rise through the ranks in the TMC, but the way the party treated him and his sons, forced him to leave it and join the BJP.

“The way our family was thrown out of the TMC will forever be written in history. We will not bow down to political attacks and atrocities and we will work under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah,” said Sisir.

79-year-old Sisir Adhikari is the patriarch of the Adhikari family which has considerable clout in the Medinipur district.

Also read: Suvendu's father Sisir Adhikari joins BJP at Amit Shah's rally in Bengal

Such is the influence that Sisir became the Member of Legislative Assembly from Kanthi Dakshin from 2001 to 2006 at a stretch. His winning run continued from 2006 to 2009 even when he contested from Egra. In 2009, he went to the Lok Sabha.

Sisir Adhikari has three sons — Suvendu, 49, Dibyendu, 43, and the youngest, Soumendu.

Suvendu Adhikari is the most prominent leader to rebel against the ruling party in Bengal since the agitation of Mukul Roy, who was once a close aid of Mamata Banerjee. Like Mukul Roy, Suvendu too is considered instrumental behind the rise of Mamata Banerjee as a prominent leader and regarded as one of the leading contributors behind TMC's landslide victory in the 2011 Assembly election that pushed the then-dominant Left Front in the state to the brink of extinction.

It was the Nandigram movement that catapulted him to the limelight and made him one of the trusted lieutenants of Mamata Banerjee. It was also a movement that marked the decline of the CPI(M)-led Left Front government. In the upcoming West Bengal Assembly election, Sisir's eldest son will take on Mamata Banerjee in Nandigram Constituency.

Read more: Mamata Banerjee calls herself 'donkey' for not recognising 'true face' of Adhikari family

Dibyendu won Assembly elections in 2009, 2011, and 2016 before winning the Lok Sabha by-election for the Tamluk seat vacated by Suvendu. He won from Tamluk again in 2019.

Soumendu was chairman of the Kanthi Municipal Corporation and later joined BJP.

An agitated West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee has blamed herself for not recognising the "true face" of the influential Adhikari family of Purba Medinipur district and called herself a "big donkey" for being unable to do so.

She compared the Adhikari family with "Mir Jafar" (traitor) and said that the people of the region will not tolerate it and give befitting reply with ballots.

Mir Jafar, the military general of Bengal's last independent nawab Siraj-ud-Daulah, is considered a traitor for deceiving the besieged Nawab during the Battle of Plassey in 1757 which paved the way for British rule in India.

She also blamed the Adhikari family for ruling the district as "zamindars" (landlords) by taking full control of the area, claiming that even she was not allowed to hold public meetings there.