BJP wins Falta assembly constituency repoll in West Bengal

BJP candidate Debangshu Panda celebrates at Falta, in South 24 Parganas district, West Bengal. (PTI Photo)

NEW DELHI: The BJP swept to a landslide win in the Falta assembly constituency repoll in West Bengal, with its candidate Debangshu Panda securing more than one lakh more votes than his closest rival as counting was held on Sunday for the repoll conducted on May 21.

According to the Election Commission (ECI) website, after all 22 rounds were counted, Panda secured 149,666 votes, while Sambhu Nath Kurmi of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) finished a distant second with 40,645 votes.

With this victory, the BJP’s tally in the 294-member West Bengal assembly returns to 207 seats. The party had originally won 207 seats as well, but Suvendu Adhikari — now the state’s first BJP chief minister — vacated his Nandigram seat and retained Bhabanipore, where he had defeated Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo Mamata Banerjee, his predecessor as chief minister.

The Falta victory will be the cherry on the cake for the BJP, not only because it was a TMC-dominated constituency, but also due to the events that preceded this win.

'Diamond Harbour Model' crumbles

The Falta constituency falls under the Diamond Harbour Lok Sabha seat in South 24 Parganas district. The TMC won Falta in three consecutive assembly elections (2011, 2016 and 2021), while Diamond Harbour is represented in the Lok Sabha by the party’s number two Abhishek Banerjee, Mamata Banerjee’s nephew, who has won three successive general elections from the constituency (2014, 2019 and 2024).

Abhishek secured 40% of the votes in 2014, followed by 56% and 68% in the next two elections, respectively. On May 2, two days before the counting of votes in West Bengal, he issued a challenge to the "Union of India" to "even put a dent in my Diamond Harbour model."

Abhishek had also made allegedly provocative speeches during the campaign. Following Trinamool’s defeat, his security cover has been reduced by the new BJP-led state government. In addition, the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) has issued notices to 17 properties linked to him over alleged building violations and unauthorised constructions. The KMC mayor is Firhad Hakim, a senior TMC leader.

'Singham' vs 'Pushpa'

An interesting side battle played out between Trinamool's Falta candidate and a strongman, Jahangir Khan, and Uttar Pradesh-cadre police officer Ajay Pal Sharma, who was deployed in West Bengal as a police observer by the ECI. Sharma was dubbed "Singham" by the media after the police officer character played by Ajay Devgn in the "Singham" films.

After Sharma was seen in a viral video warning Khan's family, the TMC leader called himself "Pushpa" - the strongman-smuggler character of Allu Arjun in the two "Pushpa" films.

'Pushpa' gives up

In a development that all but confirmed the Falta repoll result even before a single vote was cast, Khan, an aide of Abhishek Banerjee, “withdrew” from the contest two days before the election. He claimed that he was stepping aside after CM Adhikari assured a “special package” for the constituency.

However, the announcement came amid FIRs filed against Khan, prompting him to seek—and obtain—protection from arrest by moving the Calcutta High Court. The move also came just two days after Adhikari remarked that he would “personally handle” Khan’s case.

Despite Khan's “withdrawal,” his name remained on the voting machines, as the deadline for withdrawing nominations had already passed. “Pushpa” finished fourth in the repoll, securing just 7,783 votes in a field of five other candidates, besides the NOTA (none of the above) option.

Why was the repoll held

The ECI ordered a repoll in all 285 voting booths in Falta over allegations of large-scale irregularities on April 29, the second and final phase of the elections. In several booths, tapes were found stuck over the names of BJP candidates on the voting machines.