Two days before the repolling at Falta Assembly constituency, Trinamool Congress candidate and Abhishek Banerjee’s aide Jahangir Khan announced on Tuesday that he will not contest any further elections.

Falta, which is part of the Diamond Harbour Lok Sabha constituency from where Abhishek is the incumbent MP, did not see the presence of any top Trinamool Congress leaders during the run-up to the repoll. It even prompted BJP Bengal chief Samik Bhattacharya to take a dig, asking where Abhishek is during campaigning in Falta. Similarly, West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari also took a swipe at Jahangir Khan, asking “Where’s Pushpa?” while campaigning over the weekend.

It was Jahangir Khan who had thrown a challenge to IPS officer Ajay Pal Sharma, who was brought in as poll observer ahead of the elections. Sharma’s reputation as an encounter specialist earned him the moniker “Singham,” which followed him to Bengal. Khan referred to himself as “Pushpa” and said, “If he is Singham, then I am Pushpa,” after Sharma went to Khan’s house ahead of the polls, warning family members against intimidating voters on election day.

Ahead of the May 4 results, Abhishek Banerjee also issued a warning, saying that even in “ten lifetimes,” the “Bangla Birodhi Gujarati gang and their stooge Gyanesh Kumar” could not put “even a dent in my DIAMOND HARBOUR MODEL.” “Bring everything you’ve got. I challenge the entire Union of India,” he added.

While the results for 293 seats in Bengal were announced on May 4, the Election Commission of India scrapped the polls in Falta Assembly constituency, citing “severe electoral offences and subversion of the democratic process.” Cases of voter intimidation and alleged tampering with EVMs, including blocking opposition candidates’ names, were reported across booths in Falta. Inadequate CCTV footage also made it impossible to verify the fairness of the polling process.

When questioned on why there was no campaigning from the Trinamool Congress’s side, West Bengal minister Dilip Ghosh said that in previous years, they never campaigned but instead used the brute force of antisocial elements to suppress people’s voting rights in Falta for years. “The results are already known. The goondas have run away and there is no support from the police anymore. Who will campaign for them?”

Source: India Today