Have nerves? Come fight in Falta: Abhishek dares ‘godfathers’ of BJP

Kolkata: Trinamool national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee threw a sweeping challenge to BJP bigwigs to contest the Falta assembly segment repoll after the Election Commission countermanded the April 29 Falta polls and ordered a repoll on May 21 across all 285 booths in the constituency.

Banerjee's defiant response came after BJP IT cell chief Amit Malviya said re-elections signalled that the "Diamond Harbour model" had crumbled. Falta is located in Diamond Harbour, part of Banerjee's LS constituency.



Banerjee hit back on X: "10 lifetimes won't be enough for your Bangla Birodhi Gujarati gang and their stooge Gyanesh Kumar to put even a dent in my Diamond Harbour model. Bring everything you have got. I challenge the entire Union of India — come to Falta. Send your strongest, send one of the godfathers from Delhi. If you have the nerve, contest in Falta."

State finance minister Chandrima Bhattacharya echoed Banerjee. "We invite Narendra Modi, Amit Shah, their 16 CMs and every minister in the Cabinet to vacate their chairs and to come test their strength in Falta. We invite Gyanesh Kumar to stop operating from the shadows and face the people directly.," she wrote on X.

Trinamool also questioned why the alleged malpractices had not been stopped despite heavy deployment of police, CAPF, election observers and police observer Ajay Pal Sharma.

BJP candidate Tapas Roy, who had petitioned the EC for a repoll, said: "It was because of incidents like what happened in Falta that Banerjee won by a margin of over seven lakh votes in Diamond Harbour."

Union minister of state Sukanta Majumdar claimed the repoll had been necessitated by Trinamool "rigging" EVMs. BJP MP Jagannath Sarkar alleged that Hindu villagers in Falta were previously prevented from voting freely, but said EC had this time taken "very effective."