After years of shared camaraderie in the battle against the Left, the Adhikaris chose a path that few saw coming — least of all Banerjee herself.
From TMC’s strongest players, the family became the BJP’s Bengal faces. And now the two are set to face-off yet again in the 2026 Assembly polls.
A battle worth watching.
The house that Sisir built
Sisir Adhikari — the Adhikari patriarch — is where the story begins. The bond he built with the young, charismatic and revolutionary Mamata Banerjee dates back right to the birth of the Trinamool Congress in 1998.
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Banerjee had just broken away from the grand old Congress party to hold a torch to the nearly four-decade Red Citadel of the Left front.
However, she was not alone.
In her fight against the iron hold of the CPI(M), Banerjee was flanked by Sisir and his sons who provided the muscle and the grassroots machinery in the crucial Purba Medinipur belt.
The Nandigram movement of 2007, which served as a cornerstone for Banerjee and her party ultimately launching “Didi” into power in 2011, was pushed and promoted by the Adhikari family.
As such, the political powerhouse of a family became the “uncrowned kings” of the south for a decade.
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Prime portfolios such as transport and irrigation were handed to son Suvendu with brother Dibyendu and father Sisir getting Lok Sabha seats under the TMC’s banner.
To make matters more dramatic, Suvendu became the “Hero of Nandigram” who had stood as a human shield for farmers against the then-ruling CPI(M).
The Great Schism: From ‘dada’ to ‘deserter’
However, Indian politics has proved time and again — the tables can always turn.
The cracks in this “friendly family” dynamic began appearing around 2019.
Reports suggest two primary catalysts for the fallout.
The first catalyst presented itself in the form of Abhishek Banerjee, Mamata’s nephew, who scaled the party ranks with alarming speed. The result was an unexpected alienation of Suvendu Adhikari who had expected the larger role in the party to be passed onto him after earning a legacy within the TMC.
The second was Suvendu’s issues with Prashant Kishor.
Kishor’s data-driven approach clashed with the esystem that the Adhikaris had established in Medinipur, further complicating matters for the family.
Moreover, the Saradha and Narada investigations left long shadows the family struggled to shake off — resulting in their tactical shift in Bengal’s politics.
In December 2020, came the final call. Suvendu joined the Bharatiya Janata Party at a massive Medinipur rally, cementing the rift and the political rivalry that was yet to come.
Soon after, his brothers Soumendu and Dibyendu followed suit with even father Sisir Adhikari eventually sharing a stage with Prime Minister Narendra Modi — a mark of the total collapse of the decades-old alliance.
2021: The giant slayer
Within the year, the divorce between Mamata Banerjee and the TMC from the Adhikaris had been settled, stamped, and sealed as the 2021 Assembly elections came knocking.
In a battle for the ages, Suvendu Adhikari not only fought but also defeated Mamata Banerjee in her own seat of Nandigram by a slim margin of 1,956 votes.
Though the TMC won the overall state, the taste of the Nandigram defeat, from a person she once held as nearly family, was forever left in Banerjee’s mouth.
Banerjee later referred to the family as “Mir Jafars,” a historical reference to betrayal, alleging they had been in touch with the BJP since 2014.
“I used to respect them a lot, shower them with love,” Banerjee recently noted at a rally. Today, that love has turned into the fiercest political rivalry in modern Indian history, reaching its crescendo as Bengal votes this April.
The fallout led to a flurry of legal petitions and central agency probes that have since defined the state’s political discourse.
Context 2026: The final showdown
With the 2026 polls now riding on Bengal’s heels, the Adhikari family has all but completely transitioned to Didi’s “arch-nemesis.”
Currently serving as the Leader of Opposition, Suvendu’s campaigns against the “pishi-bhaipo” (aunt and nephew) rule have said as much.
In the battle for the soul of Bengal, the BJP has framed its campaign around jobs and clean governance, while the TMC banks on welfare schemes.
The stakes for the Adhikaris are existential.
Suvendu, now the sole face of the BJP’s campaign, is even contesting in Nandigram against his former aide, Pabitra Kar, who has switched back to the TMC.
Meanwhile, for Mamata Banerjee, the 2026 election is a mission to prove that the “grassflower” can bloom without the Adhikaris.
