Bharatiya Janata Party candidate Debangshu Panda won the repoll in Falta by a massive margin of 1,09,021 votes, defeating Communist Party of India (Marxist) candidate Sambhu Nath Kurmi. Meanwhile, All India Trinamool Congress candidate Jahangir Khan, who had withdrawn from active campaigning but remained on the ballot, finished fourth with 7,783 votes.In the recent assembly polls, TMC gave ticket to Jahangir Khan, who announced that he was ‘backing out’ just two days before polling. However, he remained on the ballot, as per EC rules, according to which the date to formally withdraw had already passed.Chief minister Suvendu Adhikari, hailed the win and took jabs at TMC, as BJP took the lead to over 1 lakh votes, right before the results were formally declared. “The notorious ‘Diamond Harbour’ model has turned into the ‘Trinamool’s Loss-Bar’ model!!! First of all, I bow my head in salutation to the people of Falta—the divine populace—who, with an overwhelming mandate, sent Shri Debangshu Pandya, the Bharatiya Janata Party candidate, to the Assembly in the bye-election for the Falta constituency,” he said.Further thanking the voters for making his ‘plea’ come true, he added, “I am especially grateful to Falta’s voters; I had appealed to them to secure victory for BJP’s candidate by a margin of one lakh votes, and the winning margin has surpassed one lakh eight thousand. Further Through development, we shall repay this debt to you. We are committed to building a golden Falta. A party devoid of principles or ideals, which had morphed into a mafia syndicate, has had its skeletal state laid bare upon losing power. By abusing state machinery, this lot plundered public funds, extorted people’s hard-earned money, and through syndicates and a culture of threats, its leaders treated the nation as their private fiefdom.”Abhishek Banerjee, nephew of three-time chief minister Mamata Banerjee and the no. 2 in her All India Trinamool Congress (AITC), represents Diamond Harbour in the Lok Sabha. This made Falta a high-stakes seat for the party.The Election Commission ordered a complete repoll in all 285 polling stations of Falta constituency on May 21, citing “severe electoral offences and subversion of democratic process” during the April 29 polling. Results will be declared after the repoll. on May 24.Falta is one of the 294 assembly constituencies in West Bengal. It is a General category seat and is located in the South 24 Parganas district. The constituency is part of the Diamond Harbour parliamentary constituency, which includes seven assembly segments.The constituency witnessed two major controversies: BJP’s lotus symbol was found taped on EVMs in several booths, prompting the Election Commission of India to order a probe; and the confrontation between Ajay Pal Sharma, a UP-cadre IPS officer appointed as police observer by the poll panel, and Trinamool’s Khan, a local strongman.In the 2021 assembly election, AITC’s Shankar Kumar Naskar won the seat, marking a hattrick of wins for the party. Before Naskar, Trinamool’s Tamonash Ghosh was the victorious candidate in both 2011 and 2016 polls.In 2021, AITC secured 55.61% of the vote share, while the BJP, which fielded Bidhan Parui, received 36.75% of the votes.