Case against Suvendu Adhikari, brother Soumendu for stealing relief material

Kolkata, June 06: BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari and his brother Soumendu has been booked for allegedly stealing relief material worth several lakhs from a municipality office in West Bengal's Kanthi, about 150 km from state capital Kolkata.

A case has been filed against the Adhikari brothers on the complaint of Ratnadip Manna, a member of the Kanthi Municipal Administrative Board. In the complaint, Manna alleges that on the instruction of Suvendu and his brother used armed central forces in the alleged theft.

Ratnadip Manna, a member of Kanthi Municipal Administrative Board, made a complaint at Kanthi Police Station on 1st June against BJP's Suvendu Adhikari & his brother & former Municipal Chief Soumendu Adhikari of Kanthi Municipality pic.twitter.com/987eC1SaDH

— ANI (@ANI) June 5, 2021

"On 29 May 2021 at 12:30 pm as per direction of Suvendu Adhikari and his brother and former Municipal Chief Soumendu Adhikari of Kanthi Municipality, Government tripal whose estimated value is around lakhs of rupees, was taken away from municipality office godown by forcefully and illegally opening locks," read the complaint submitted by Manna at Kanthi Police Station on June 1.

Adhikari has earned a reputation as a 'giant slayer' by defeating Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in the battle for Nandigram, even though his party lost heavily in the larger war to woo Bengal.

After Banerjee stormed to power in the state in 2011, many saw Adhikari, who has a mass following in pockets of South Bengal, as her eventual heir apparent. It all changed after Abhishek Banerjee was promoted in the party and began taking control of the key party decisions.

But Abhishek's meteoric rise in the party and its decision-making fora continued to plague Adhikari, who nursed a feeling that the party did not give him his due. He later quit TMC to join BJP ahead of assembly polls.