West Bengal: BJP's Debangshu Panda sweeps Falta seat by 1 lakh votes, but Abhishek Banerjee alleges counting issues

The BJP's Debangshu Panda on Sunday won the Falta seat in the South 24 Parganas district with a margin of more than 1 lakh votes, replicating the May 4 saffron sweep in West Bengal that saw Suvendu Adhikari installed as CM earlier this month.

All 285 polling stations of the constituency were scheduled for a repoll after the Election Commission's (EC) poll assessments of the voting in Falta showed irregularities.

After 22 rounds of counting, Panda defeated CPI(M) candidate Sambhu Nath Kurmi by a huge margin of 1,09,021 votes.

The Congress' Abdul Razzak Molla trailed far behind Kurmi in third, while the TMC's Jahangir Khan came fourth despite withdrawing from the polls due to "personal reasons", as his name was still on the EVMs.

However, the TMC's Abhishek Banerjee has now alleged that "glaring irregularities" had taken place in the Falta repoll, repeating claims of collusion between the BJP and the EC.

Notably, it was similar claims of the BJP and the EC working together to tamper ballot boxes that eventually led to repolling taking place on May 2 at two constituencies located in the South 24 Parganas district—Magrahat Paschim and Diamond Harbour.

This had led to tensions between workers of the two parties at two places housing EVM strongrooms in Kolkata.

Banerjee has now questioned how most rounds of counting in Falta had been completed by 3:30 PM on May 24, while on May 4, only "till the same time, only 2-4 rounds had taken place".

"The country deserves an explanation from the ECI. Although more than 1,000 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," he claimed in an X post, attacking the promotion of former CEO Manoj Agarwal to the post of Chief Secretary after the 2026 Assembly elections.

This comes amid ongoing tensions within the TMC after its crushing defeat in the 2026 Assembly elections, most recently directed at Banerjee over the "sudden" withdrawal of its Falta candidate.

At a recent closed-door meeting chaired by TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee, several newly elected MLAs—including Kunal Ghosh, Ritabrata Bandyopadhyay, and Sandipan Saha—questioned why no disciplinary action was taken against Khan for his last-minute withdrawal, which they said was a “serious embarrassment” for the party, an Indian Express report said.

Notably, Banerjee is not only the party's all-India general secretary, but also the representative of the Diamond Harbour Lok Sabha constituency, under which Falta falls.

"(Khan) said Pushpa jhukega nahi, then why did he bow down? Falta falls under Diamond Harbour Lok Sabha constituency where Abhishek is our MP. He won there by more than 7 lakh votes. This is not good for the party," Ghosh later told reporters.