India’s BJP names Suvendu Adhikari as West Bengal chief minister

India’s ruling the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has named Suvendu Adhikari as the next chief minister of West Bengal, the party’s senior leader and India’s Interior Minister Amit Shah announced on Friday, following the BJP’s sweeping victory in the state elections.
In Monday’s results, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s BJP secured a landmark 207 of the 294 seats in the state legislative assembly, marking the party’s first electoral victory in the predominantly Bengali-speaking state of more than 100 million people, long considered a stronghold of its political rivals.
The results should put Modi on a stronger footing while he battles a series of economic and foreign policy challenges, including high unemployment rates and a pending US trade deal, ahead of a general election in 2029.
“It was decided unanimously,” Amit told reporters after a meeting of BJP’s elected members in the eastern state.
Adhikari will be sworn in Today, the BJP’s West Bengal president Samik Bhattacharya said.
Votes were counted under tight security in West Bengal -- one of five states and territories across India that held elections in April and May and where results were also announced on Monday.
Meanwhile, India Today reported that Suvendu Adhikari, while addressing newly elected BJP legislators at Kolkata’s Biswa Bangla Convention Centre after the announcement, struck an emotional tone, saying it was time for “bhoy out, bhorsha in” (“fear out, trust in”). 
He also pledged a government focused on service delivery, women’s safety, and building a “Sonar Bangla” (“Golden Bengal”).
Thanking the BJP leadership. Shuvendu halied Amit Shah as the “Chanakya of modern India” for steering the party to its first-ever government in Bengal. 
Praising Narendra Modi for the success of the election and promising to fulfill election pledges he said, “Today (8 May), I assure you that in the coming days, our government and organisation will remain committed to the ideology of the party and to the cultural spirit of West Bengal. We will fulfil every promise made in our manifesto within the stipulated time.”

Deadly violence 
The BJP’s campaign in West Bengal was marked by protests over the purge of millions of names from voter rolls, billed as removing ineligible voters but which critics said was skewed against marginalised and minority communities.
Violence that erupted after the election results killed at least five people, including Adhikari’s close aide who was shot dead near his home in Kolkata as supporters of the rival parties clashed.
The BJP had waged an aggressive campaign to dislodge the powerful regional party of firebrand leader and three-time chief minister Mamata Banerjee, who held power in West Bengal since 2011.
Analysts say the ruling party’s victory West Bengal is one of its most significant since Modi was elected prime minister in 2014, expanding its dominance beyond the Hindi-speaking heartland of north and central India.
The BJP also returned to power in the northeastern state of Assam for a third time in a row, and in the small coastal territory of Puducherry, where it was a part of the ruling coalition.