REJINAGAR’S POLITICAL EARTHQUAKE: BJP VOTE COUNT DOUBLES AS OPPOSITION QUESTIONS EXTRAORDINARY BYPOLL RESULT.

October 10, 2026

The Bharatiya Janata Party’s emphatic victory in Muslim-majority Rejinagar in West Bengal has triggered a fierce political controversy, with opposition parties questioning how the party’s vote count surged from 64,660 to 1,29,914 within five months. The result has placed the BJP’s electoral breakthrough in Murshidabad under intense scrutiny, particularly after its candidate, Shankharavh Sarkar, defeated his nearest rival by a margin of 75,816 votes.

The scale of the BJP’s victory has raised questions because Rejinagar had delivered a decisive mandate to Aam Janata Unnayan Party (AJUP) leader Humayun Kabir in the previous election, when he won the constituency by 58,876 votes. Kabir subsequently retained the Nowda seat and fielded his son, Golam Nabi Azad, also known as Robin, from Rejinagar. In the bypoll, his son secured 54,098 votes, compared with the 1,23,536 votes Kabir had obtained five months earlier.

The controversy has centred particularly on voting patterns at six polling booths where Muslim voters reportedly constituted the entire electorate. At Khagrupara Primary School, the BJP received 528 votes out of 574 votes polled at booth 85 and 877 out of 951 at booth 86. At Jhikra Primary School, the party secured 773 of the 821 votes cast. At Mirzapur Mallikpara Primary School, it obtained 776 votes out of 838, while at Mirzapur Bandhpara SSK it received 624 of the 687 votes polled. At Kasipur Primary School, the BJP secured 325 of the 393 votes cast. These figures have become central to opposition arguments questioning the credibility of the result.

AJUP leader Humayun Kabir alleged that the BJP and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) workers had rigged polling booths with the alleged support of the police. He claimed that party workers had been arrested in the two months preceding the bypoll and that at least 60 of his leaders and workers remained in jail. Despite these alleged obstacles, Kabir said his candidate’s tally of more than 54,000 votes demonstrated the party’s genuine support in the constituency.

The allegations were echoed by Murshidabad CPI(M) district secretary Jamir Molla and senior Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury. Both questioned whether the result reflected voters’ actual preferences and accused the BJP of benefiting from alleged electoral manipulation. They compared the outcome to what opposition parties have described as the “Diamond Harbour model” associated with Trinamool Congress leader Abhishek Banerjee, arguing that Rejinagar represented a new version of alleged electoral malpractice. The BJP has rejected the charges.

Concerns have also emerged from residents who said they were prevented from voting. Rejinagar villagers Saheb Sheikh and Ramzan Ali alleged that police personnel turned them away when they attempted to cast their votes at Khagrupara Primary School on October 6. Another resident, Afroz Ali, claimed that women from the village did not vote and that men attempting to enter the polling station were driven away. The residents questioned how hundreds of votes could have been recorded at the booths despite what they described as restrictions on voters.

A similar controversy surrounds Mirzapur Mallikpara Primary School, where Trinamool Congress candidate Rabiul Islam Chowdhury reportedly received only 18 votes, while the BJP secured 776 out of 838 votes cast. Opposition parties cited this result as further grounds for questioning the voting pattern in a booth whose electorate was reported to be entirely Muslim.

Sarkar, the victorious BJP candidate, rejected allegations of rigging and said the victory belonged to his party and the people of Rejinagar. He pledged to focus on the constituency’s development. However, he did not explain the sharp increase in the BJP’s vote count between the two elections.

The result has intensified an already bitter political battle over the integrity of West Bengal’s electoral process. While the opposition has demanded accountability and alleged collusion involving the police and election officials, these accusations remain contested and are not established findings. The extraordinary change in the constituency’s voting figures, together with allegations from local residents, has nevertheless placed Rejinagar at the centre of a wider dispute over electoral transparency, voter access and public confidence in the democratic process.