Trinamool, BJP vie to pay homage on Nandigram Shaheed Diwas, engage in war of words

Trinamool Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Monday, November 10, 2025, vied to pay tribute to Shaheed Diwas to those killed in a fire incident in Nandigram in 2007.

The violence had broken out in Nandigram in West Bengal’s Purba Medinipur district in 2007, amid violent public protests against forceful land acquisition for a petrochemical project undertaken by the former Left Front government.

On Monday (November 10), Trinamool and BJP held tribute programs at the Shaheed Bedi memorial in Nandigram, built in memory of those who died on November 10. Leader of Opposition in the West Bengal Assembly and BJP MLA from Nandigram Suvendu Adhikari paid tributes, shortly after which a Trinamool Congress delegation comprising Minister Snehasis Chakraborty and local leadership paid tributes at the memorial.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee went to X to pay tributes on the occasion of Nandigram Shaheed Diwas and wrote ‘Bhulte pari nijer naam, bhulbo nako Nandigram’ (I may forget my own name but I will never forget Nandigram).

But Mr Adhikari, while addressing media in Nandigram today, said he ‘made a mistake’ when supporting Ms Banerjee’s rise to power in 2011.

“I have always said very clearly that there was no real parivartan (change) in 2011. We made a mistake by supporting a dynastic, corrupt, vindictive leader. We also had a hand in his election as Prime Minister. We accept that we made a mistake. [The BJP] “LoP will bring real change to people,” he said.

It is noteworthy that Mr. Adhikari was then one of the most prominent faces of the anti-land acquisition movement in Nandigram and a heavyweight leader of the Trinamool. Trinamool came to power a few years after the Nandigram violence; party president Mamata Banerjee emerged as the chief minister of West Bengal in 2011 with promises of ‘parivartan’ (change) from the 34-year-old Left regime.

In the 2021 Assembly polls, incumbent Mr. Adhikari won the Assembly seat in Nandigram under the BJP banner for the first time against Trinamool chief and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in a high-voltage election contest between the two former party colleagues.

On Monday, November 10, the BJP MLA also accused the Chief Minister of depriving Nandigram’s ‘shaheed’ (martyr) families of pending compensation benefits on the grounds of Mr. Adhikari’s participation in BJP rallies in 2021.

“After a rally in Nandigram in 2021 [Mamata Banerjee] After announcing that he would appeal from there, the District Magistrate paid the payments to the families. “However, the four of them did not receive compensation because they did not attend Mamata’s rally that day and came with me,” he alleged.

Meanwhile, Trinamool leaders also launched verbal attacks on the BJP; Trinamool MP Abhishek Banerjee takes jabs at the ‘zamindars of Delhi’ on social media.

“The face of the oppressor has changed, the oppression is the same… While the Left Front once relied on secret “SCIENTIFIC CORRECTION”, the current regime resorts to SILENT INVISIBLE CORRECTION. Bengal taught the Left Front a lesson it will never forget, today we are sending the same message to the zamindars in Delhi. Bengal will resist relentlessly and resolutely,” Mr. Banerjee said in her eulogy on social media. Nandigram Shaheed Diwas.