There was such an earthquake in the politics of West Bengal which destroyed the strongest stronghold of Trinamool Congress. From promising electric crematoriums for BJP’s last rites to watching his own empire collapse, Abhishek Banerjee’s Diamond Harbor fort has come crashing down. After the surrender of Jahangir Khan, who calls himself ‘Pushpa’ in the Phalta Assembly, BJP has achieved a tremendous victory.
This is the story of the fall of ego, muscle power and the restoration of democracy, which changed both the political geography and history of Bengal. west bengal Before the second phase of voting on April 29, Trinamool Congress MP Abhishek Banerjee had inaugurated the electric crematorium in Phalta assembly seat. Abhishek Banerjee, considered number-2 in TMC, had made a scathing attack on BJP at that time.
TMC MP Abhishek Banerjee had said, “I felt that after the results are declared on May 4, some people may suffer a heart attack, so it is our duty to make proper arrangements for their last rites.” This thing is about a month old. But since then the atmosphere of Bengal politics has completely changed. BJP has captured power in West Bengal with a landslide victory.
BJP, which won 207 seats, has sent TMC, which was in power for 15 years, back to the opposition. The same dramatic change has now been seen in Phalta also, where BJP candidate Debangshu Panda has won the seat with an overwhelming majority. Jahangir Khan, the strongman of Trinamool Congress and who calls himself ‘Pushpa’, came to the fourth position. Falta Assembly falls in Diamond Harbor, the stronghold of Abhishek Banerjee.
Diamond Harbor has been an impregnable fortress of TMC since 2009. It was occupied by Abhishek Banerjee, the party’s national general secretary and Mamata Banerjee’s declared successor. His loyal associate Jahangir Khan used to help him in saving this fort. Today that fort has become ruins. After all 22 rounds of counting were completed on Sunday, the BJP candidate has won with 1,49,421 votes.
Shambhu Nath Karmi of CPI(M) stood second with 40,625 votes. Jahangir Khan, once a powerful commander of Abhishek Banerjee, who was out of the election race on May 19, slipped far behind to fourth place. He got only 6,257 votes. Before understanding how Phalata got ‘saffron colour’, it is important to understand how TMC made this area its impenetrable fort.
How did Diamond Harbor become Trinamool’s impenetrable fort?
In the last decade, Diamond Harbor has become an important place on the political map of West Bengal. Its rise is deeply linked to the rapidly rising political stature of its three-time MP Abhishek Banerjee. The main reason for Abhishek Banerjee’s tremendous rise from a completely new face in politics to becoming the second biggest leader of Trinamool in the year 2014 was his completely strong hold on this area.
Falta is one of the seven important assembly constituencies that are part of the Diamond Harbor parliamentary constituency. It comes in South 24 Parganas district. If we look at the figures of the last elections, it becomes clear how strong Abhishek Banerjee’s hold was on this area. In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, he won this seat by a huge margin of 3.2 lakh votes. By the year 2024, this difference had increased to 7.1 lakh votes.
Abhishek Banerjee’s dominance was so much that during the last panchayat elections, Trinamool Congress had won most of the local blocks without any contest. Different political parties give different reasons for their strong hold on this area. TMC gives full credit for its success to the strategy it calls ‘Diamond Harbor Model’.
In this strategy, grassroots level public welfare schemes were combined with rapid development of health facilities in the area. This way of connecting directly with people first came into limelight during the Covid-19 pandemic, when Abhishek Banerjee’s supporters geared up to run ‘community kitchens’ in every block of the entire parliamentary constituency. Worked to deliver free food packets during the lockdown.
In the years following the pandemic, this model evolved into more popular initiatives focused on direct-to-people contact and direct citizen engagement. In the year 2022, MP Banerjee started a program named ‘Ek Dake Abhishek’ (Abhishek on one call). Under this program, people could call a toll-free number and convey their complaints or problems directly to their team.
Apart from this, one initiative that received the highest praise was ‘Shradharghya’ (tribute). Under this scheme, thousands of TMC workers deposited money voluntarily, so that pension of Rs 1000 every month could be given to about 70000 elderly people of the entire constituency. This move created a strong and direct relationship between Abhishek Banerjee and his voters. He was going to take advantage of this in the elections.
Allegations of fear, threat and rigging in Diamond Harbor
In contrast, the opposition presents a different picture, in which TMC’s dominance is attributed to an atmosphere of fear, intimidation and election rigging. Both BJP and Left Front have many times alleged that local police register cases against opposition workers to sideline them before the elections. Threatens them. Takes action against them. They get scared by this.
BJP leaders including Amit Malviya described Diamond Harbor as a den of voter intimidation and election rigging. Amit Malviya had alleged on April 26, “Diamond Harbor has long been infamous as a center of criminal activities and a den of election rigging.” Beyond election management, the opposition has also linked its political power here to an illegal ‘underground economy’.
BJP alleged that due to Diamond Harbor being close to Sundarbans and Bangladesh border, this area acts as a ‘transit point’ for human trafficking, infiltration and drugs, the purpose of which is to create vote bank for TMC. BJP workers have even gone to the extent of saying that this constituency is like ‘Liyari’, the ‘den of criminals’ of Karachi, which has been shown in the film Dhurandhar.
How was the competition between Falta and Diamond Harbor?
The local battle within Falta turned into a ‘high-stakes’ contest on April 29 following widespread complaints of voter intimidation and EVM tampering. Allegations also included people using tape, ink and even ‘perfume’ on buttons to try to track who voted for whom or to disrupt voting.
In response, the Election Commission canceled the initial voting and ordered complete re-voting in all 285 booths of Falta. Abhishek Banerjee gave a very sharp reaction to this decision. He strongly attacked the leadership of BJP. Even the Bharatiya Janata Party leaders were termed as anti-Bengali Gujarati gang and their election officials as puppets.
He had challenged and said, “Bring everything you have. I challenge the entire Indian Union. Come forward. Send your most powerful people, send a ‘Godfather’ from Delhi.” As a result, IPS officer Ajay Pal Sharma, police supervisor of the Election Commission, took command of law and order enforcement. He is known as Singham for his strict attitude against criminals.
IPS Ajay Pal Sharma launched a vigorous campaign against threats and hooliganism at the local level. In this way, he got into direct competition with local veteran TMC leader Jahangir Khan. When he went to Jahangir’s house to warn against rigging on the election day, he compared himself to the character of the film ‘Pushpa’ and said that he would not bow before anyone.
The situation changed after the election results of Bengal came on May 4. BJP achieved a tremendous lead by winning 207 out of 294 seats and formed the government for the first time with majority. The ruling TMC was reduced to just 80 seats. Due to this, the entire atmosphere changed even before the re-polling. Just two days before re-polling on May 21, Jahangir Khan suddenly withdrew his name from contesting the elections.
He claimed that he was stepping back so that Phalta could benefit from the development package announced by the new government. This was not a deliberate strategy to withdraw the name, but it was a complete surrender. TMC had seen the election results of the entire state. Due to heavy deployment of central paramilitary forces, it was not possible for TMC to perform any miracle in the elections.
BJP leaders immediately made fun of Jahangir Khan’s withdrawal from the election. Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari said that ‘Pushpa’ ran away. Despite Jahangir Khan’s withdrawal from the election, re-polling took place amid tight security, in which 87% people cast their votes. After completion of all 22 rounds of voting, Debangshu Panda of Bharatiya Janata Party won this seat with a huge margin. He has secured 1,49,421 votes.
How Abhishek’s ‘Diamond Harbor Model’ failed
In many ways, TMC’s complete wipeout in Falta was a mirror of the party’s larger-scale collapse across West Bengal. Just as most voters ignored TMC’s core welfare programs (like ‘Lakshmi Bhandar’ and ‘Kanyashree’) and chose BJP’s alternative vision and better law and order, a similar change was seen inside Diamond Harbor too.
Abhishek Banerjee’s ‘Diamond Harbor Model’, which was considered a perfect formula, lost its luster in front of the ‘anti-incumbency wave’. In fact, heavy deployment of central security forces played a decisive role in this, which completely neutralized TMC’s old intimidation tactics. The tightly secured polling booths brought a sense of democratic freedom to the people of Falta.
On May 21, a local voter said, “It is exactly like it used to be in my childhood days. 15 years ago, we were afraid to vote, but now it is not so at all. At that time, we were not even allowed to come to the polling booth. Goons used to stop us at the gate. Today I am very happy.” The atmosphere of fear due to shortage has completely ended. Other parties are also realizing this.
Earlier, candidates of other parties were not able to campaign due to threats from Jahangir Khan. Another major reason for the downfall of the ‘Diamond Harbor Model’ was Jahangir Khan’s sudden withdrawal from the election field just two days before re-voting. Their political system had already completely disintegrated. Immediately after the results came on 4 May, his office was attacked and vandalized.
He was not getting any special support from the TMC high command to continue this fight further. Abhishek Banerjee himself was facing slogans of ‘chor-chor’ at various places, due to which he had also stopped participating in public programs. At present, the results of Phalta are, in every respect, a comprehensive confirmation of the wave of mandate that swept across the state on May 4.
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