• Suvendu Adhikari of the BJP will be sworn in as the new chief minister of West Bengal after the BJP won 207 of 294 assembly seats.
  • Adhikari was a close aide of Mamata Banerjee before their bitter falling out a few years ago.
  • The BJP’s victory ends the 15-year rule of Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress party.
  • Adhikari built a reputation as a combative organizer, notably during the 2007 Nandigram protests.
  • Critics see him as embodying the polarized rhetoric that has come to define the state.

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