BJP takes over West Bengal!
BJP stands for India’s ruling Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)
New Delhi, May 9 (EFE).-
India’s ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) took control of West Bengal on Saturday, with Suvendu Adhikari sworn in as chief minister, ending the 15-year rule of Mamata Banerjee and marking the fall of one of the last major opposition strongholds in eastern India.
Banerjee, the influential and combative leader who had exercised near-total political control over the state, had until recently refused to accept the results of the late-April elections.
After the BJP’s victory was announced, Banerjee alleged widespread electoral fraud and initially refused to resign, pushing the state toward a political standoff as clashes erupted between rival supporters in several areas.
However, Banerjee appeared to soften her stance on Saturday when she updated her official social media profile to refer to her tenure in the past tense, listing her previous terms in office while removing her status as an incumbent chief minister.
National media interpreted the move as tacit acknowledgment of the end of the mandate of Bengal’s so-called “Iron Lady.”
The new government, led by Banerjee’s former close aide who defected to the BJP in 2020, takes office amid opposition allegations that the nationalist party’s victory was aided by the removal of 9.1 million names from electoral rolls.
According to opposition leaders, the alleged “purge” affected around 12 percent of the electorate in a state where the BJP secured a landslide victory, winning 207 of the 294 seats in the state assembly.
The transfer of power comes amid a wave of political violence in the region that has reportedly left at least three people dead and led to hundreds of arrests.
With the BJP’s victory in Kolkata, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party strengthens its position in eastern India and faces fewer regional political counterweights to its nationalist agenda.
A lawyer, poet and self-taught painter, Banerjee built her political identity through opposition politics and rose to prominence in 2011 when she ended the 34-year rule of the Left Front, widely regarded as the world’s longest-serving democratically elected communist government. EFE
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