For four months in 2021, after the Bengal Assembly poll results were declared, D. Amitabha, a school teacher in Jafarpur, Falta, South 24-Parganas had to stay away from home.

Seven attempt to murder cases filed against him soon after the 2021 Assembly poll results were announced.

“Those cases are still pending. I knew the cops would come for me,” Amitabha told The Telegraph Online from Falta on Thursday when polls were held for the last of the 294 Assembly polls in the state. “I fled to Maharashtra’s Chandrapur. I could not stay for long in one place. I lived in Nadia’s Karimpur, South 24-Parganas Sonarpur and some other places before I could return home on August 15, 2021.”

This was Falta till the 2026 Assembly polls when the Election Commission took steps to neutralise the Trinamool’s muscle power in the area.

When the constituency went to polls on April 29 along with 141 other Assembly seats, the central poll panel had received complaints that the BJP candidate’s name and party symbol had tapes stuck on the electronic voting machines.

The EC had ordered repoll in all the 285 booths in the constituency, which was held on Thursday.

Till 4.30 pm on Thursday an estimated 74.10 per cent voters had cast their votes in the constituency. The Trinamool strongman Jahangir Khan, a close aide of the party’s national general secretary and Diamond Harbour MP Abhishek Banerjee, had announced his withdrawal from the poll battle on Tuesday.

In the run-up to the April 29 polls, Jahangir had locked horns with a UP IPS officer Ajay Pal Sharma, who was sent to South 24-Parganas as police observer. Jahangir, who called himself “Pushpa” (the titular character of a 2021 Telugu film) was nowhere to be seen when Falta went to polls on Thursday.

“Polling is absolutely peaceful today. There was no disturbance before or during the polls,” said Amitabha. “This is how Falta used to poll till the 2018 panchayat polls. I did not like the way opposition candidates were stopped from filing their nominations for the panchayat elections. I parted ways with the Trinamool and joined the BJP.”

After the 2021 Assembly polls, Dhananjay Pradhan, a BJP supporter, enlisted his name with the Trinamool few days after a cyber café and stationery shop he ran on the Diamond Harbour road at Mollar Thes in Falta was looted.

“They took away the entire stationery stock, machines. I was forced to surrender. Otherwise I would have to leave Falta,” Pradhan, a resident of Baneswarpur told The Telegraph Online.

Three photocopier machines, two photo printers, a desktop and a laptop were looted from his shop.

“We were not free to vote according to our will. My shop wasn’t the only one to be looted. A wholesale goods shop, a sweet shop even a small counter for selling fritters was looted,” he said recounting the names of fellow-sufferers. “My nephew was a polling agent for the BJP in the 2021 Assembly polls. He was forced to run away.”

During the panchayat polls of 2023, when Dhananjay’s wife’s name was announced as one of the candidates, he did not object as he was afraid that saying no would go against him and his family.

The Falta residents say the reign of terror started at least three to four months before elections were held.

“They would mark the voters who were against them, who could go against them. Threats and attacks intensified as the polling day approached.

For the last two years Tarun Kumar Haldar, a Falta resident and BJP supporter, has been traveling to Ballygunge station to ply an auto-rickshaw on the Ballygunge-Behala route.

“Kichhu to korte hobe. Koto din aar bose thakbo (I had to do something to earn. How long could I sit at home)?” Haldar told The Telegraph Online.

Till the 2021 Assembly polls, Haldar ferried passengers in the Bagrahat-Dighir Paar route in Falta. After the elections, for his political allegiance, Tarun’s auto-rickshaw was damaged beyond repair and his source of livelihood snatched.

“I could not even repay the loan that I took in 2018 to buy the vehicle,” he said.

Haldar alleged he was threatened even on April 29 by Trinamool workers that they would teach him a lesson after May 4.

When the results were declared on May 4, the BJP had romped home to victory and the Trinamool government voted out.

Will the repercussion be on the other side now?

“It is unlikely that those who committed atrocities would be spared,” said Pradhan.