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Reflecting West Bengal’s diverse ethnic fabric, the cabinet represented communities, including the Matuas and the Santhals.
Here’s a brief look at the background of the five members of Adhikari’s council of ministers who were sworn in:
Dilip Ghosh: If the 2026 state elections put giant-killer Suvendu Adhikari at its centrestage, following his historic win over Mamata Banerjee in Bhabanipur, the polls also scripted a remarkable comeback for Ghosh, the former president of the BJP’s West Bengal unit, cementing his role in a more measured second innings in state politics.
Easily one of the party’s most recognisable and combative faces in Bengal, Ghosh played a pivotal role in transforming the saffron party from a fringe player into the principal challenger to the TMC.
A former RSS pracharak with a reputation for blunt, often controversial, remarks and a grassroots style of politics, Ghosh oversaw the BJP’s dramatic organisational expansion in the state between 2015 and 2021.
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The party’s breakthrough came in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, when it won 18 of 42 seats in Bengal, an unprecedented surge that altered the state’s political landscape. Ghosh was elected MP from Medinipur, consolidating his influence in the politically sensitive Junglemahal belt.
Yet in the years that followed, the once-dominant leader appeared to drift into a curious political limbo within the party, as internal equations in the Bengal BJP began to shift.
Differences with sections of the state leadership sharpened after the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, when Ghosh publicly criticised organisational decisions under his successor Sukanta Majumdar.
Moved from his stronghold of Medinipur to Bardhaman-Durgapur, he lost the seat and openly blamed “back-biting” within the party and flawed campaign management, remarks that exposed factional tensions in the state unit.
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The strains became more visible when Ghosh attended the inauguration of the Jagannath temple in Digha with his newly wedded wife, where he was seen briefly exchanging greetings with then Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, an event that the Bengal BJP had officially boycotted. The episode drew criticism from sections of the state leadership.
Yet, setting aside those lingering tensions, Ghosh re-emerged in the BJP’s political calculus, with his organisational experience and deep connect with grassroots workers once again seen as valuable assets as the party began preparations for the 2026 assembly battle, which it eventually won triumphantly.
Ghosh won the Kharagpur Sadar seat, the base from where he once started his journey in electoral politics, humbling the TMC’s sitting MLA Pradip Sarkar.
Agnimitra Paul: Fashion designer-turned-frontline state leader, Paul, emerged as one of the most prominent faces of the BJP’s Bengal unit, characterised by her vocal role in opposition politics and active presence in the assembly.
An MLA from the state’s coal mining heartland of Asansol Dakshin seat, Paul won the assembly segment first in 2021 by humbling TMC’s Saayoni Ghosh, now a Lok Sabha MP, and then went on to retain it this time.
She joined the BJP in March 2019, and quickly rose within the party ranks, holding posts of president of the state BJP Mahila Morcha, general secretary of the party’s Bengal unit and is currently serving as its vice president.
Paul had unsuccessfully contested the 2022 Asansol Lok Sabha by-election, losing to actor-politician Shatrughan Sinha of TMC. In the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, she again contested from Medinipur seat but was defeated by TMC’s actor-politician June Malia.
Since her joining the saffron party, Paul had been frequently raising issues related to governance and accountability of the TMC government and protesting the alleged large-scale corruption, violence against opposition supporters, infiltration and appeasement in demonstrations and on the floor of the House.
Before entering politics, Paul built a career as a fashion designer and entrepreneur and was a prominent showbiz personality.
Nisith Pramanik: A former TMC youth leader, who joined the BJP following his expulsion after the 2018 panchayat polls in Bengal, Pramanik defeated his nearest TMC rival Paresh Adhikary in the 2019 general elections.
Two years later, at the age of 35, he earned the distinction of becoming the youngest member of Narendra Modi’s council of ministers following a reshuffle in the cabinet, where he served as Union minister of state for Home as well as Sports and Youth affairs ministry from 2021 to 2024.
Pramanik started as a booth president and worked his way up to the BJP’s state leadership in a meteoric rise of sorts. His political surge, however, suffered a setback during the 2024 general elections when he was defeated by TMC’s Jagadish Basunia from Cooch Behar in north Bengal.
Pramanik was back in the fray in 2026 and emerged triumphant. He comprehensively won the Mathabhanga seat in Cooch Behar, defeating TMC’s Sablu Barman.
Ashok Kirtania: A saffron party leader from the Matua community belt of North 24 Parganas district bordering Bangladesh, Kirtania retained his Bangaon Uttar seat, which he first won in 2021, defeating TMC’s Biswajit Das.
In the wake of the SIR deletions, where perceptions of disenfranchisement angst among the migrant Hindu Namashudra refugee community were palpable, Kirtania’s achievement had put anti-BJP sentiment speculations to rest.
Kshudiram Tudu: A representative of the Santhal tribal community, Tudu contributed to the total BJP sweep in the forest-covered ‘jungal mahal’ area of central Bengal, snatching the Ranibandh assembly seat in Bankura district from TMC, vanquishing Mamata Banerjee’s nominee Tanushree Hansda.
For a community which is striving in Bengal for proliferation of the Santhali language among its community members, Tudu’s choosing to take oath in his native language.
