Suvendu Adhikari has been elected as the new chief minister of West Bengal following a BJP legislature party meeting, featuring Union Home Minister Amit Shah, in Kolkata on Friday.

The meeting was held at a city hotel and was attended by newly elected BJP MLAs, central observers and senior state leaders.

Adhikari, who was the face of BJP during the campaign, emerged as “giant slayer” after defeating sitting Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in her bastion Bhabanipur.

The swearing-in ceremony has been scheduled on May 9 and is expected to be attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Shah and chief ministers of NDA-ruled states. The high-profile event will be held at Brigade Parade Ground in Kolkata.

Fifty-five-year-old Adhikari served as the Leader of the Opposition in the now-dissolved Assembly. Once a trusted lieutenant of Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee, Adhikari switched to the BJP in 2020, months ahead of the 2021 Assembly polls. In 2021, the BJP emerged as the main opposition in Bengal, winning 77 seats in the Assembly. Five years on, it has stormed to power after winning 207 seats in this election.

Adhikari is the son of three-time MP Sisir Adhikari, who served as Union Minister in the UPA-II government. He started his political journey with the Chhatra Parishad, the Congress’s students’ wing, at a time when the Left was at its peak in Bengal. He was was first elected a councillor in the Kanthi municipality in 1995. He switched to the Trinamool after Banerjee founded the party in 1998.

Adhikari’s entry provided the TMC with the presence it required to challenge the CPI(M) machinery in Purba Medinipur district, where the Adhikari family had been involved in politics for decades. His organisational skills boosted the party’s strength in the region, as Trinamool took on then CPI(M) strongman and former MP Lakshman Seth.