India, May 9 -- Very few in West Bengal were taken aback when, on Friday, Union Home Minister Amit Shah formally anointed one of BJP's most prominent faces, Suvendu Adhikari, as the leader of the party's legislative wing in the State - a decisive move that all but cleared the path for him to be sworn in as the State's ninth and the BJP's first chief minister on Saturday, amid mounting political anticipation and high drama.

In many ways, Adhikari earned the distinction, having dealt two resounding electoral blows to TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee within the span of five years - first in his own backyard of Nandigram during the 2021 Assembly elections, and then, perhaps even more symbolically, in Banerjee's so-called "impregnable" bastion of ...