On May 24, 2026, vote counting concluded for the West Bengal Falta Assembly constituency repoll, delivering a landslide victory for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate Debangshu Panda. The fresh election across all 285 booths took place on May 21 after the Election Commission voided the original April 29 vote. That initial polling was cancelled following reports of severe electoral offences, which included voter intimidation and electronic voting machine (EVM) tampering where lotus symbols were covered with black tape.
The final election standing revealed a bizarre ballot anomaly. Trinamool Congress (TMC) candidate Jahangir Khan finished in fourth place despite publicly announcing his withdrawal from the election two days prior to the repoll. Khan managed to secure a total of 7,783 votes, accounting for roughly 3.7% of the total vote share, even though he was no longer actively contesting the seat.
Khan received thousands of votes because his public exit occurred long after the official Election Commission deadline. Under Section 37 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, the final date for candidate withdrawal for this phase of elections passed on April 13. Because this legal deadline had lapsed, his name and the TMC’s two-flower symbol remained permanently locked inside the electronic voting machines and could not be removed before voters went to the polls. A portion of his total vote count also originated from postal ballots that had already been submitted before his public announcement.
The political shift ends a long-standing streak for the opposition in the region, as the TMC had held the Falta assembly seat continuously since 2011. Following the official declaration of the result, West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari celebrated the outcome and openly mocked the opposition’s leadership. Adhikari remarked that the highly publicised Diamond Harbour model had officially turned into the Trinamool’s loss-bar model.
Panda won the Falta seat by securing a total of 1,49,666 votes, establishing a victory margin that exceeded 1.09 lakh votes. Khan had previously been known as a close associate of Abhishek Banerjee. He claimed his decision to step aside was motivated by promises from the current administration regarding a special development package for the Falta region. The TMC leadership quickly distanced itself from the development, stating that Khan had given in to pressure from external federal investigative agencies.