Adhikari’s Narada prosecution stayed stalled after BJP switch; 2026 CM elevation renews scrutiny

Suvendu Adhikari’s elevation as West Bengal Chief Minister in May 2026 gave new relevance to an older unresolved accountability question. The CBI had sought sanction in 2019 to prosecute him in the Narada sting matter; reporting in 2021 and a wider Indian Express investigation in 2024 said that sanction was still awaited. Adhikari had joined the BJP in December 2020.

What the 2026 reel gets right — and overstates

The supplied Instagram reel argues that Narendra Modi attacked the Narada sting during the 2016 West Bengal campaign but later accepted Adhikari into the BJP and saw him rise to the chief minister’s office. That political chronology is substantially supported. The reel is too categorical, however, when it says Adhikari was conclusively “caught taking a bribe”: the sting footage, forensic findings and CBI action establish a serious corruption allegation and investigation, not a Narada conviction against him.

The Narada evidence led to a court-directed CBI inquiry

In March 2017, the Calcutta High Court recorded that forensic examination of the analysed Narada material found no tampering or editing and directed the CBI to conduct a preliminary inquiry and proceed according to law if cognizable offences were disclosed. The court’s findings were prima facie. They supported investigation of the material; they did not adjudicate the guilt of every person shown.

In 2019 the CBI sought the Lok Sabha Speaker’s sanction to prosecute Adhikari and three then MPs. In May 2021, a CBI official told PTI that the request was still pending. Later reporting in 2024 again listed Adhikari’s Narada matter among cases in which action had stalled after an opposition politician moved to the BJP.

The core issue is consistency of enforcement, not a shortcut to guilt

The public-interest question is therefore larger than whether one reel accurately describes the sting. Anti-corruption enforcement is expected to apply consistently regardless of party affiliation, and unexplained delays in prosecution decisions can affect public confidence even when they have lawful procedural explanations.

A 2024 Indian Express investigation reviewed 25 prominent opposition politicians who faced central-agency scrutiny and later crossed to the BJP or a BJP-led alliance. It reported some form of reprieve in 23 cases, while two did not show a let-up. The report included Adhikari’s Narada case among matters where action had stalled. That recurrence is enough to justify scrutiny of institutional consistency, but it does not by itself prove that joining the BJP caused a case to slow down.

What the pattern does not establish

Individual investigations can change course for legal, evidentiary and procedural reasons. Enforcement agencies have rejected allegations of politically selective action and say cases are pursued on evidence and legal mandate. In Adhikari’s case, the reviewed record documents a prosecution-sanction bottleneck, but it does not prove that the BJP, Narendra Modi or another political actor directed the CBI or the Lok Sabha Speaker, traded legal relief for political loyalty, or caused the delay.

The reel’s line that Modi “handed” Adhikari the chief minister’s chair is also political shorthand. Adhikari became BJP legislature-party leader and then took office through the constitutional government-formation process after the 2026 election.

Why the 2026 elevation matters

Adhikari’s rise to chief minister does not convert an unresolved allegation into guilt. It does, however, increase the public importance of a clear and current account of what happened to the investigation and prosecution request. The relevant democratic standard is not that an accused politician must be barred from office without adjudication; it is that investigative and sanction decisions should be timely, reasoned and politically neutral.

IndiaFiles assessment

The strongest supported conclusion is a tension between political accountability rhetoric and an unresolved enforcement trajectory. Modi did publicly use the Narada sting against the Trinamool Congress in 2016; Adhikari later joined the BJP; the CBI’s prosecution-sanction request remained reported as pending for years; and Adhikari became Chief Minister in 2026. A broader pattern of post-switch reprieve or stalled action has also been independently documented. But neither that pattern nor this case proves a quid pro quo, political direction of the investigation, or criminal guilt. The unresolved question is institutional: whether anti-corruption enforcement and prosecution decisions are applied consistently and explained transparently across political affiliations.