Mamata, Abhishek bin exit-poll numbers, tell party to be extra vigilant
Telegraph | 2 May 2026
Trinamool national secretary general Abhishek Banerjee will be monitoring the counting process for the 31 Assembly seats in South 24-Parganas district on May 4, the day of counting of votes for the Bengal Assembly.
Former state director general of police and Trinamool Rajya Sabha MP Rajeev Kumar has been entrusted with the responsibility of monitoring the counting process in Dum Dum and Barrackpore areas.
Abhishek and Rajeev Kumar are among the 39 counting observers assigned the task by Bengal's ruling party on Saturday.
Trinamool sources said the decision to appoint counting observers was taken in a virtual meeting addressed by Mamata Banerjee and Abhishek.
The party wants to prevent any attempt by the BJP to “manipulate the counting process,” a source said.
“You have to work hard and guard the strong room and work on counting day too,” was Mamata’s message to the party leaders and workers, ahead of Monday’s counting. “Even I did so and will continue to do so.”
On Thursday Mamata had spent over four hours till well past midnight in south Kolkata’s Sakhawat Memorial where the electronic voting machines for her Bhabanipur constituency are stored.
Counting for the 294 seats in the Bengal Assembly will be held on Monday. The exit polls have given the main opposition BJP an edge over the Trinamool and predicted a win for the saffron party.
Lok Sabha MPs Sougata Roy and Partha Bhowmick will be monitoring the counting process in the rest of North 24-Parganas, while for the Barasat segment Madhyamgram MLA Rathin Ghosh has been given charge.
Lok Sabha MP Sudip Bandyopadhyay, Beleghata nominee Kunal Ghosh, councillor Swapan Samaddar and former MLA Vivek Gupta will be in charge of north Calcutta. For the crucial south Calcutta seats, Mamata has fielded her trusted lieutenants Firhad Hakim and Aroop Biswas.
The Jadavpur Lok Sabha MP Saayoni Ghosh will be heading for East Midnapore, which includes Nandigram, one of the two seats that the BJP’s Suvendu Adhikari is contesting from.
Exuding confidence that the Trinamool is set to win more than 200 seats in the 294-member Legislative Assembly, both Mamata Abhishek warned the counting agents that the BJP will try every means to “manipulate the poll outcome.”
“Abhishek said the BJP will try to use every bit of its strength and leverage of running the central government to manipulate the poll results. He added that till the polling we have been able to stop their machinations and we will do so on Monday too,” said a Trinamool leader. “He said even the BJP leaders do not believe the exit poll results. They are aware of the reality.”
Abhishek told the party leaders that Bengal will set an example in front of the entire country in how the BJP would fall flat on its face despite using all administrative power and central agencies in the Bengal polls.
Multiple Trinamool functionaries present at the meeting said Abhishek told them that the party was going to win more than its tally in the 2021 Assembly polls.
In 2021 Trinamool had won 213 seats when the counting was held on May 2, that year. Two seats where elections were countermanded following the deaths of two candidates were won by the ruling party taking the tally to 215.
Trinamool sources said Mamata congratulated the party workers for the fight against the BJP, the Election Commission and the central forces in the run-up to the Assembly elections and on polling day.
“Abhishek reminded even women and children were not spared. The chief minister also spoke about the Kalighat police station’s officer-in-charge," a source said.
Mamata told the party workers not to get disheartened with the exit poll predictions, claiming these were designed to influence the stock market.
“Didi said she had evidence the BJP was scamming people by using these fake exit polls and making money,” said a Trinamool leader.
Kunal Ghosh, the Trinamool’s Beleghata candidate, said the BJP was trying to manipulate the counting process.
“The BJP knows it is going to lose the Bengal Assembly polls. They are trying every means to manipulate the counting process. We cannot allow their conspiracy to succeed. We are simply being cautious,” he said.
On Saturday morning, the Trinamool had filed a complaint against the returning officer of Kshudiram Anushilan Kendra alleging “unauthorised sorting of postal ballot covers.”
Ghosh said: "We were not present when these postal ballots came. We want to be certain that the postal ballots have not been tampered with."