Suvendu over the years, from Opposition leader to Bengal’s new chief minister: A reporter’s diary
Telegraph | 10 May 2026
Bengal’s new chief minister, Suvendu Adhikari, was once a minister in the Mamata Banerjee cabinet between May 2016 and November 2020. Journalist Kinsuk Basu recounts his interactions with the politician during reporting assignments over the years.
Aapni ekdin Haldia aashbyen. Ami aapnake ghuriye dekhabo (You come to Haldia one day. I will take you around).
The voice thundered from the other end of the mobile phone as I paced down the office corridor in September 2011, barely four months after Mamata Banerjee and the Trinamool Congress first came to power in Bengal.
My report on alleged labour troubles faced by some industrialists in Haldia had appeared that morning.
Suvendu, then the Trinamool MP from Tamluk, had outright denied allegations of political interference, and the report carried his statement. But that was not enough. The leader wanted to convey his displeasure.
The call lasted only a few minutes. Suvendu invited me to visit the port city in East Midnapore and see things differently. But not before expressing strong reservations about the story.
The conversation was brief, and Suvendu was blunt — a trait he still carries.
Over the years, that report resurfaced repeatedly during our interactions, usually in jest.
What became unmistakable was this: Suvendu never forgets.
Two years later, in July 2013, I was back on his turf covering the panchayat elections in Nandigram.
Laxmikanta Gayen, a Trinamool supporter from Sonachura, had dared to file nomination papers as an independent candidate. Along with my colleague Anshuman Phadikar, I went looking for him and eventually spotted him hiding beneath the Tekhali bridge.
It was polling day. A group of Trinamool supporters attacked us. We were bundled into a house and warned not to step outside. Several hundred supporters stood outside. I realised we were trapped.
“Aapni kothaye achhen? (Where are you?)”
The familiar voice thundered again over the phone after multiple failed attempts to reach him. I counted the minutes anxiously inside the room. About 15 minutes later, Suvendu arrived in a white kurta and pyjama.
That night, while returning to Haldia, my editor called and asked me to write about the experience.
In August 2016, three months after Mamata appointed Suvendu transport minister in place of Madan Mitra, a minor girl was abducted from Brabourne Road, raped and murdered, allegedly by two app cab drivers. Police later arrested the two accused.
As minister, Suvendu — unlike his predecessor — never believed in informal interactions with beat reporters. Meetings with departmental officers rarely stretched beyond an hour. He did his homework and preferred to arrive fully prepared.
A few days after the rape and murder, Suvendu held back-to-back meetings with transport department officials. But details of those discussions remained inaccessible. No officer was willing to speak.
I learnt that Suvendu was attending an apolitical event in Kasba and followed him there.
The crowd was unmanageable. I stood in a corner. As he was leaving the venue, Suvendu called me over.
Without waiting for a question, he said app cab operators failing to follow the state government’s safety guidelines would not be allowed to operate in Calcutta.
“App cab operators will have to submit a no-objection certificate for each driver from their local police stations before allowing them to drive,” he said, his voice nearly drowned out by supporters outside.
“Chinta korben na. Shob sidha kore debo (Don’t worry. We will straighten them out).”
The words have remained with Suvendu a decade after their first utterance.
But there was one chinta that surfaced occasionally in quieter moments.
At times, when Suvendu chose to reflect, he admitted how exhausting it was to prove that a leader from Midnapore could lead Bengal.
In December 2020, when he resigned from the Trinamool, he sounded certain that he would eventually prove his mettle.