The BJP won the Falta Assembly repoll in West Bengal on Sunday, with its candidate, Debangshu Panda’s, polling 1,09,021 more votes than his nearest rival. While Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari hailed the results, the TMC’s Abhishek Banerjee accused the Election Commission (EC) of bias.
As per the EC website, the BJP candidate received 1,49,666 votes, while CPM candidate Shambhu Kurmi polled 40,645 votes and the Congress’s Abdur Razzak Molla got 10,084 votes. The Trinamool Congress’s Jahangir Khan came fourth by polling 7783 votes.
Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari wrote on social media that reality had come to light when people were allowed to vote freely.
“The infamous ‘Diamond Harbour’ model has turned into the ‘TMC’s Har-Bar’ (perennial defeat) model !!! First and foremost, I bow my head in reverence to the public—the ultimate deity—of Falta for sending the Bharatiya Janata Party candidate, Debangshu Panda, to the Legislative Assembly with a massive mandate in the Falta Assembly constituency by-election. I am especially grateful to the voters of Falta; I had appealed to make the BJP candidate win by one lakh votes, and the margin of victory has crossed one lakh eight thousand. We will repay this debt of yours through development. We are committed to building a Golden Falta.
An unprincipled and unscrupulous party, which had transformed into a mafia company, has had its skeletal state exposed as soon as it lost power. By abusing state power to loot public wealth and snatching people’s hard-earned money through extortion, syndicates, and threat culture, the leaders of this party began to think of themselves as invincible. A fraudster, who landed via parachute and was hailed as the commander, has committed every crime imaginable. To establish his criminal syndicate, this ‘cat in a tiger’s skin’ left no stone unturned in throttling democracy. Consequently, turning the previous election into a mockery, the TMC had taken a lead of 1.5 lakh votes in this Assembly constituency. After 15 years, when the people regained the freedom to cast their own votes, the real reality has been revealed. This is just the beginning; a long journey of rejection lies ahead to be traversed. In the coming days, a tough fight against ‘NOTA’ awaits the leadership of the Trinamool Congress in the elections. The All India Trinamool Congress has already been defeated by ‘NOTA’ in the Tripura State Legislative Assembly elections. In the coming days, the people of West Bengal are waiting to witness this fierce contest in West Bengal as well,” he wrote.
Meanwhile, TMC second-in-command Abhishek Banerjee alleged “glaring inconsistencies” between the pace of counting on Sunday and May 4.
The Falta AC repoll counting today exposes glaring inconsistencies. By 3:30 pm in the afternoon today all 21 rounds were completed. On 4th May, till the same time, only 2- 4 rounds had taken place. The country deserves an explanation from the ECI.
Although more than 1000…
— Abhishek Banerjee (@abhishekaitc) May 24, 2026
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“The Falta AC repoll counting today exposes glaring inconsistencies. By 3:30 pm in the afternoon today all 21 rounds were completed. On 4th May, till the same time, only 2-4 rounds had taken place. The country deserves an explanation from the ECI. Although more than 1000 workers from Falta have been forced to flee their homes in the last 10 days, the Election Commission continued to turn a blind eye. Party offices were vandalised in broad daylight, even when the Model Code of Conduct was in force.
“The Election Commission has taken no action. Instead, the CEO, who was allegedly used by the ECI to delete names under the guise of SIR and manipulate the electoral process, was appointed Chief Secretary of the new WB government at a time when the Model Code of Conduct was still in force in Falta, and the polling process had not even been completed. Even more worrying, counting agents of Trinamool and other political parties, except the BJP, were allegedly thrown out of the venue on May 4th by officials and central forces deployed under the Election Commission of India. This is deeply alarming and strikes at the heart of free and fair elections.
“Unless compromised officials are held accountable and an independent CCTV audit of the counting process is conducted, questions over the credibility of the mandate will only grow stronger. The truth cannot be suppressed forever,” he posted on X.
The Election Commission decided to hold a repoll in Falta after the Opposition alleged huge anomalies during the vote on April 29.
Jahangir Khan’s ‘withdrawal’ from repoll race
Jahangir Khan, who had likened himself to Telugu film hero “Pushpa” ahead of the initial election, announced his decision to withdraw from the repoll two days before the vote.
Jahangir Khan’s last-moment withdrawal led to sharp criticism of Abhishek Banerjee from within the party and intensified scrutiny of his leadership. Banerjee represents the Diamond Harbour Lok Sabha constituency, under which Falta falls.
“We will not bow to him. This is Bengal; if he is ‘Singham’, I am ‘Pushpa’. No amount of threat or coercion by the BJP-appointed police officials from Uttar Pradesh will be allowed in Falta,” Jahangir Khan thundered late last month, a day after Uttar Pradesh police officer Ajay Pal Sharma, an “encounter specialist” hailed as “Singham” on social media, had arrived at his home in Falta looking for him. The IPS officer also warned Khan against poll-related violence.
However, Jahangir pulled out of the repoll race, stating that Chief Minister Adhikari had promised a “special package” for the constituency.
After Jahangir Khan’s announcement, it was expected that the repoll contest would be between the BJP’s Debangshu Panda and the CPM’s Shambhu Kurmi. The field in Falta is now virtually open for the BJP, which has won 207 seats in the Assembly elections. A victory in Falta would take its total seat count to 208.
A close confidant of Banerjee, Jahangir Khan had given the TMC second-in-command a lead of over 1 lakh votes in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Thirty-five companies of central forces were present in the constituency for the May 21 repoll and counting.