As votes are counted in West Bengal on Monday, voters of Falta in South 24 Parganas district will get to see who has been voted to power. But they themselves have to wait for almost three more weeks to cast their votes again and choose their MLA after the Election Commission (EC) issued a rare order directing that polls be held again in all 285 polling stations in the constituency.One of the Assembly segments in TMC leader Abhishek Banerjee’s Diamond Harbour Lok Sabha constituency, Falta is one of the party’s bastions and gave the MP a lead of more than 1.5 lakh votes in the 2024 Lok Sabha constituencies. This time, the EC reported “severe electoral offences and subversion of democratic process during polling” in the Assembly constituency, where TMC candidate Jahangir Khan wields massive influence. Opposition candidates have alleged that the electoral process was manipulated through the use of “black tape/perfume on ballot unit”.With the TMC since 2011, Falta, which has an almost equal population of Hindus and Muslims, had never witnessed the extended dominance of any one party since 1952. The first election was won by the Communist Party of India, while the next two went to the Congress, before the CPI(M) won the seat in 1967, before the Congress again made a comeback in 1972 and held on to it even amid the Left sweep in 1977. Since then, the constituency kept alternating every two elections between the Congress and the CPI(M), before the TMC’s Tamonash Ghosh bagged it in 2001. He lost it in 2006, but made a comeback in 2011 and retained the seat in 2016.However, with the rise of Abhishek in the party, Tamonash, among the TMC’s earliest leaders, fell out of favour with the party leadership and was replaced.While TMC and BJP leaders in the area refused to comment on the latest controversy, a CPI(M) district committee member, who wished to remain unnamed, claimed Falta had never seen violence or one-sided elections before the TMC came to power. “Whoever won always bagged the seat by a moderate margin, around 25,000 votes. The elections were always competitive. Then in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the lead from this Assembly segment jumped to around 40,000 and this trend held in the 2021 Assembly polls too. In the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, the TMC got a lead of more than 1.5 lakh votes. And the main leader behind this is Jahangir Khan.”TMC insiders also credited Khan for Abhishek winning the seat by more than seven lakh votes. Khan, whose rivals accuse him of maintaining an iron grip in the area through fear, was born in a family of CPI(M) leaders. His father, the late Akbar Khan, and elder brother Salim Khan were known Left leaders in the area. Jahangir too started his political journey with the CPI(M) and later, started an embroidery business.Soon afterwards, as the TMC gained strength, he joined the TMC before the 2008 panchayat elections under the leadership of Bhaktaram Mondal. In that election, Khan became the pradhan of the Belsingha-II gram panchayat.Story continues below this ad“He was a common leader till the 2014 Lok Sabha election. After Abhishek Banerjee won the MP in 2014, he gradually became close to him,” said a senior district TMC leader. This is when Tamonash was eased out of the party’s decision-making process.“In 2023, Khan became a Zila Parishad member and is now the person who runs the body,” said the TMC leader, adding, “He gradually sidelined all existing TMC leaders like Bhaktaram Mondal and Tamonash Ghosh, who were very close to Mamata Banerjee. Ghosh died during the Covid pandemic and Mondal joined the BJP. Now, Jahangir and his brother-in-law Saidul Islam rule Falta. No one dares to stand up to them.”Ahead of polling, Khan hit the headlines after police observer and senior Uttar Pradesh officer Ajay Pal Sharma, known as an “encounter specialist”, conducted searches at his home. When Sharma, known as “Singham (daredevil)”, did not find him, he issued a warning to Khan’s family members, which was captured in a video clip that went viral.“Listen carefully: if there is any mischief, the treatment will be such that crying later won’t help,” Sharma was heard saying in front of Khan’s home. “Jahangir’s family members are here. I am telling them — I hear his men are going around threatening people. Tell him that if this continues, I will take note of everything. I will take such action that even weeping won’t save him later.”Story continues below this adLater, referring to Bollywood movie Singham and Telugu action film Pushpa, Khan told reporters, “The police observer should inform the local SP if there is any problem. But he visited my home with the Central forces. How can he do that? We only bow to people. We will not bow to him. This is Bengal; if he is ‘Singham’, I am ‘Pushpa’. No amount of threat or coercion by the BJP-appointed police officials from Uttar Pradesh will be allowed in Falta.”Falta will go to the polls again on May 21 and the results will be announced three days later.