West Bengal bypolls revive ‘opposition-free’ electoral strategy

Videos from Rejinagar show police allegedly turning Muslim voters away from polling stations. Just before his arrest, Am Janata Unnayan Party (AJUP) chief Mr. Humayun Kabir alleged that while central forces stood outside and observers’ phones were switched off, police took part in vote rigging.
A similar allegation emerged in Nandigram. At Subhashini Chowk, a woman told the media that BJP workers had taken away her voter slip, preventing her from voting.
The Trinamool Congress candidate in Rejinagar claimed that party agents were allowed into only 25 to 30 of the 315 booths. AJUP chief Mr. Humayun Kabir was also taken into police custody. Later, a delegation led by state Congress president Mr. Shubhankar Sarkar met the Chief Electoral Officer in Kolkata. Mr. Sarkar alleged, “Nandigram and Rejinagar have proved how votes are being stolen in broad daylight. The polls must be cancelled and fresh elections held.”
In contrast, a model polling station at Nandanayak Bar Primary School saw Leader of the Opposition Mr. Suvendu Adhikari casting his vote. The booth was decorated with pink and white balloons, while all polling agents inside wore saffron scarves.
Mr. Suvendu said, “I won by 82,000 votes in 2016. I hope that record will also be broken this time.”
The BJP has set an even higher target, aiming to surpass the 109,000-vote margin recorded in the Falta bypoll. With 266,415 voters, a one-lakh margin would require the winner to secure around 70 percent of the votes.
Repetition of an old strategy
The developments have revived memories of the 2018 West Bengal panchayat elections. Of 58,692 seats, 20,159, or around 34 percent, saw no contest, with the Trinamool winning 20,076 seats uncontested. In 2013, the figure had been only 10.66 percent. The State Election Commission later extended the nomination deadline amid allegations of obstruction of opposition candidates. The Supreme Court also described the situation as a serious setback to grassroots democracy.
In January 2021, shortly after joining the BJP, Mr. Suvendu himself spoke about the 2018 election at a rally in Jhargram. He alleged that armed forces surrounded BDO offices to prevent opposition candidates from filing nominations, opposition workers were detained or implicated in false cases, and results were changed with police assistance.
At the time, Mr. Suvendu was Trinamool’s transport minister and organisational observer for Murshidabad, Malda and East Midnapore. Days earlier, he had said at a meeting in Malda, “Our only goal is to form opposition-free panchayat boards.”
Legally, no court has established personal wrongdoing by Mr. Suvendu in connection with those incidents. However, the political strategy he described and the events during his tenure remain part of the public record.
The recent bypoll campaign has produced similar allegations. In Nandigram, the Congress candidate spent 11 of 16 campaign days in custody over an old warrant linked to the 2007 land movement. The CPI candidate backed by the Left was allegedly assaulted, while the Trinamool candidate withdrew after meeting the chief minister.
In Rejinagar, an AJUP-backed candidate was arrested and Mr. Humayun Kabir was detained on polling day. The RSP withdrew after failing to receive its preferred symbol, while the Indian Secular Front (ISF) was given the ‘almirah’ symbol instead of its previous ‘envelope’ symbol.
Opposition parties also alleged police interference during voting. Congress and Left leaders claimed Muslim voters’ slips were taken away in Nandigram, while videos from Rejinagar appeared to show police preventing voters from entering polling stations.
Another development was the blocking of social media pages. According to investigative organisation Alt News, at least 25 to 30 local news media pages in Murshidabad were blocked in India, citing restrictions under the Information Technology Act.
Given the BJP’s current position in state politics and its previous performance in Nandigram, the main question was not whether Mr. Suvendu would win but by how much.
Mr. Suvendu has repeatedly alleged that Abhishek Banerjee’s 68.48 percent vote share in Diamond Harbour in the 2024 Lok Sabha election resulted from rigging. However, when Mr. Suvendu was a prominent Trinamool leader, he himself secured 68.37 percent of the vote in the Nandigram block of the Tamluk Lok Sabha constituency in 2014 and 66.78 percent in the 2016 Assembly election.
Booth-level data also show that Mr. Suvendu received 704 of 721 votes at booth No. 242 in Nandigram in 2014. Several booths recorded more than 90 percent of votes in his favour. In 2018, the Trinamool received 90.8 to 98.9 percent of votes at 10 consecutive booths in the Moyna Assembly constituency.
Mr. Suvendu’s current target of a one-lakh-vote margin would therefore mean surpassing his own previous record, much as Abhishek sought to do in Diamond Harbour in 2024.
The political colours may have changed, but the latest bypolls have once again raised questions about the persistence of the old electoral strategy.