NEW DELHI: West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari stated on Friday that “so-called Pushpa” Jahangir Khan is “my responsibility,” calling for a violence-free re-poll in the Falta assembly constituency set for May 21. “So-called Pushpa is my responsibility now; Falta repoll must be violence-free,” PTI reported Adhikari as saying.
Ahead of the elections, Khan, a prominent Trinamool Congress (TMC) figure and the party’s candidate for Falta, referred to himself as “Pushpa,” a character depicted by Telugu actor Allu Arjun in the films “Pushpa.” This comment was a reaction to UP-cadre IPS officer Ajay Pal Sharma, who was designated by the Election Commission as a police observer in West Bengal and was compared to “Singham,” a character played by Ajay Devgn in the “Singham” film series.
In a now-viral video, Sharma was seen warning Khan’s family, to which Khan responded, “Tell him, we’ll deal properly with him if his men continue to threaten…don’t cry or regret it then.”
The Election Commission mandated a re-poll in the Falta constituency after the button for the BJP’s symbol on electronic voting machines was found taped at several polling booths. The counting of votes is scheduled for May 24.
The West Bengal assembly elections, conducted on April 23 and 29, resulted in the BJP ousting the TMC, ending the 15-year tenure of Mamata Banerjee and establishing its first government in the state. The elections recorded a turnout of over 90% in both phases.
Adhikari, a former TMC leader, secured victories in both his stronghold of Nandigram and Banerjee’s Bhabanipur seat, where he defeated the former chief minister—reviving the contest from 2021, where he had narrowly won. Following this, he vacated the Nandigram seat to retain Bhabanipur.
