Elections often trigger apparently impossible flips. One such flip was seen on Friday when a "locally influential" Trinamool Congress leader, along with 400 families of migrant workers, took up the Red flag and switched allegiance to the CPM in Domkal, Murshidabad.

Adding to the optics of the shift, the turncoats took control of the Trinamool Congress’s "party office" in ward 19 of Domkal town and turned it into a CPM party office.

Barely days before the first-phase April 23 Assembly poll, the change of sides has injected momentum into what is shaping up as a keen four-cornered contest for the Domkal Assembly segment, where Trinamool candidate and former IPS officer Humayun Kabir is pitted against the CPM's Mostafijur Rahaman, the Congress's Shahanaj Begum and the BJP's Nanda Dulal Pal.

The Trinamool leadership dismissed the development as political theatre, maintaining that the so-called party office was in fact an election office functioning from a room in Enamul Malitha’s residence, who led the defection. Malitha was Trinamool's ward 19 committee president.

“There is no question of taking over any Trinamool office,” a Trinamool leader said, refusing to attach significance to the defection.

Those who joined the CPM, many of them migrant workers employed in Kerala, said their decision was driven by disillusionment with Trinamool and a desire to support the Left candidate Mostafijur, a local face and the CPM's Domkal area secretary, who had also contested the seat in 2021 as part of the Left-Congress alliance.

Party insiders believe Mostafijur's sustained engagement with migrant workers over the past two years consolidated his support base.

The political narrative around Mostafijur's candidature has been shaped significantly by his outreach during a period when migrant workers from Bengal, particularly Muslims, faced hostility in several states. Last year, Mostafijur travelled to Kerala and, with support from the CPM's state unit there, held meetings with migrant labourers across multiple locations.

“He (Mostafijur) has a big heart. He stood by people like us in difficult times, when being a Bengali-speaking Muslim outside Bengal had become risky,” a CPM supporter in Domkal said.

With Mostafijur in the fray, several migrant workers have begun returning home to cast their votes "for Rana da" as he is popularly known.

Abdul Odud, a mason from Garibpur village who works in Kerala, said he took leave from his employer specifically to vote.

“Last year, when migrant workers were being targeted in different states for being Muslims, it was Rana-da who came to Kerala from Domkal and stood by us. He held meetings in different places and ensured we did not face difficulties,” he said.

Echoing similar sentiments, Malitha said: “It is for Mostafijur Rahaman that we all joined the CPM. There was no temptation. We left the Trinamool Congress and joined the CPM of our own will. Protesting against corruption and extortion in the Trinamool did not work. So around 400 families in our area together took the CPM flag from Mostafijur Rahaman last evening (Friday)."

Mostafijur, while acknowledging the development, sought to frame it as a spontaneous expression of public support.

“We do not organise formal induction programmes. I had gone to campaign in ward 19 on Friday afternoon when they gathered on their own, welcomed us with flowers and took the party flag from my hand. About 400 families, including Enamul Malitha, joined us,” he said and added that in ward 14, at least 500 families, also led by a local Trinamool leader, joined the party. "Those who joined decided that the TMC's party office would function as the CPM office."

The Trinamool Congress's Domkal town committee president Md Kamruzzaman said Malitha had already been sidelined in Trinamool.

“Malitha was our former ward committee president. He did not work during the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, after which he was removed. The current ward president is functioning responsibly,” Kamruzzaman said, rejecting claims of any takeover.

"The election office was being run from a room in Malitha’s house. Now that he has joined the CPM, so for obvious reasons, his house has become their election office now,” he added.

In the 2021 polls, Trinamool's Safikul Islam defeated Mostafijur by 47,000 votes. In the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, the Trinamool had a lead of 13,000 votes in the Domkal Assembly segment. Domkal has 2,67,00 voters, 87 per cent of whom are minorities.

The Domkal contest underscores a broader undercurrent in parts of rural Bengal, where migrant networks, local leadership credibility and perceptions matter.