The battle after victory: Suvendu targets Abhishek’s turf as Falta goes to repoll

Seventeen days after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) wrested power in West Bengal for the first time in history, decimating the Trinamool Congress (TMC), repolling is set to take place in Falta, the assembly constituency where the electoral process was allegedly disturbed during the scheduled polling on April 29.

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The Election Commission had ordered repolling in all 285 voting centres of the constituency, including the auxiliary ones, citing serious electoral offences and subversion of the democratic process on the day of the scheduled polling. The repolling will take place between 7 am and 6 pm on Thursday (May 21), and the counting will take place on Sunday (May 24).

BJP eyes its 208th seat

While Falta’s outcome would not affect the overall results, the BJP has given enough indication that it is not complacent and wants to clinch it as well, as its 208th seat. The TMC has been winning the seat since 2011. In 2021, the TMC won it, defeating its nearest competitor, the BJP, by more than 40,000 votes.

On Saturday (May 16), Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari attended a rally in Falta, where he, besides urging the voters to secure the victory of BJP candidate Debangshu Panda, slammed the TMC candidate, Jahangir Khan, who is known to be close to Abhishek Banerjee, the nephew of former chief minister and party supremo Mamata Banerjee.

Jahangir emerged as one of the most talked-about characters in this election season in Bengal. During the polls in April, he even challenged Ajay Pal Sharma, an IPS from Uttar Pradesh, who came to Bengal as an election observer and is compared to “Singham”, the big-screen tough cop played by Ajay Devgn. Jahangir said if Sharma is “Singham”, he is “Pushpa”, implying another popular anti-hero of Indian cinema. “There is no question of bowing before him,” Jahangir said about Sharma, although he was not seen for about 10 days after May 4.

CM Suvendu calls TMC candidate 'Pushpa'

According to Suvendu, who vowed to take action against Jahangir after the election got over, the Human Rights Commission announced 19 people as “notorious criminals” after the 2021 Assembly elections. “Where is Pushpa?” the chief minister asked from the rally dias, warning that his administration would not spare a single name against which complaints have been made during the elections.

During its days in the Opposition, the BJP had alleged that Jahangir was behind incidents of terror, clashes, extortion, and booth-capturing in Falta and Diamond Harbour (the Lok Sabha constituency under which Falta comes) in South 24 Parganas district, and several common people had to leave the area due to the disturbance. Jahangir refuted the allegations and said people knew what good work he and his party had done for the constituency.

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The battle for Falta is not just another repolling. The CM announced a special development package for the constituency during the rally and said people in Falta and Diamond Harbour could not cast votes for almost a decade. He said the May 21 repolling is not just an election and urged the voters to make the BJP candidate victorious by more than one lakh ballots. The total voter population of Falta is 2.25 lakh.

Falta comes under Abhishek Banerjee LS constituency

What makes the Falta contest interesting is that the Diamond Harbour constituency has been held by Abhishek since 2014. Suvendu, who was once in the TMC, reportedly left the party to join the BJP due to his rivalry with Abhishek, and a BJP victory in Falta would boost his image further. Suvendu himself humbled Mamata in her own seat of Bhabanipur in this election, registering his second successive victory over the latter, who was once his mentor.

The BJP’s verbal attacks against the TMC did not end with Suvendu. The state chief of the party, Shamik Bhattacharjee, visited Falta on Sunday (May 18), but launched sarcastic attacks. Asking why the TMC was not campaigning for the repolling, he took a dig at the TMC’s top leadership, saying they were issuing threats because police protection was no longer there.

Remarking that the BJP’s local leaders will themselves welcome the TMC, Bhattacharjee also indirectly targeted Abhishek, calling him a "veer" (hero) and saying that they were missing him.

He also asked the voters to see the BJP candidate win by 1.25 lakh votes.

TMC finds no agents for booths: Reports

Local Bengali reports claimed a few days ago that while the TMC was mocking the BJP before the Assembly elections, saying the lotus party was failing to find agents for their booths, post May 4, the former ruling party was struggling to put its own people in the booths.

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Some said the post-poll tensions have seen many local leaders hiding. Even the BJP candidate Panda was surprised, according to reports, seeing that the TMC was nowhere to be seen in the battleground and only he was campaigning.

Shambhu Kurmi, who is contesting in Falta on the Left’s ticket, told a news outlet that he was able to campaign after the fall of the TMC government. According to him, Jahangir had never allowed the opposition parties to campaign in the constituency.

Abdur Razzak is contesting for the Congress.