WestBengal: When voters in Diamond Harbour went to the polls on Wednesday during the second phase of West Bengal’s assembly elections, they were not alone. NIA sleuths, CRPF and CISF personnel patrolled the streets, and Uttar Pradesh’s encounter specialist Ajay Pal Sharma, known as ‘Singham’, had been specifically stationed there. It is not every constituency that requires an anti-terror agency and an encounter specialist just to hold an election. But then, Diamond Harbour is not every constituency.
The comparison to Lyari, the Karachi neighbourhood made infamous for its gang wars and criminal networks, recently portrayed in the web series Dhurandhar, has been circulating in political circles for some time. A BJP worker put it plainly on social media, “Lyari of TMC is Diamond Harbour. Because of Diamond Harbour’s proximity to the Sunderbans and the Bangladesh border, fuel infiltration.” The description has stuck, and on Wednesday, it was difficult to argue against it.
The EVM controversy
Even as polling was underway, Diamond Harbour generated fresh controversy. The BJP alleged that its lotus symbol had been found taped over on EVMs at several polling booths in Falta, one of the seven assembly segments within the Diamond Harbour parliamentary constituency. BJP IT Cell chief Amit Malviya shared visuals purportedly showing a tape placed directly over the party’s symbol.
“In several polling booths, the option to vote for the BJP has been blocked using a tape. This is the so-called Diamond Harbour Model, the same template that helped Mamata Banerjee’s nephew Abhishek secure his Lok Sabha seat,” Malviya said. The Trinamool Congress denied the allegation. The Election Commission ordered a probe and warned that repolling could be announced in affected booths, or across the entire constituency, if the allegations were found to be true.
Why this place matters so much
Diamond Harbour is a port city in South 24 Parganas, bordering Bangladesh, and its political significance has grown in lockstep with the rise of its three-time MP Abhishek Banerjee, Mamata Banerjee’s nephew and the Trinamool’s undisputed number two. From a first-time politician in 2014 to the most powerful figure in the party after Mamata herself, Abhishek’s ascent has been built on this constituency.
The numbers have been remarkable. In 2019, he won by a margin of 3.2 lakh votes. By 2024, that margin had grown to 7.1 lakh. In the last panchayat elections, the Trinamool won most blocks in the area uncontested. Opposition leaders have discussed these figures in hushed tones for years, unable to fully explain them and unwilling to challenge them openly.
“Diamond Harbour has long been notorious as a hub of criminal activity and an epicentre of electoral malpractice,” Malviya said. A political commentator posting under the handle Sniper noted that even the Director General of Central Armed Police Forces had camped there, adding, “TMC is getting very touchy about Diamond Harbour.”
Both the BJP and the Congress-Left alliance have repeatedly alleged that the area has become a hub for cross-border smuggling and illegal activities, with proceeds allegedly funding the Trinamool. Until a few years ago, Diamond Harbour and the nearby Canning area were also notorious for human trafficking networks. The proximity to the Sunderbans and the Bangladesh border has made the constituency central to the BJP’s broader allegations of unchecked infiltration being used to build TMC’s vote bank.
The other Diamond Harbour
The Trinamool tells a different story entirely. For the party, Diamond Harbour is a model of grassroots governance, proof that Abhishek Banerjee delivers where it matters most.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, his office ran community kitchens across every block in the constituency, distributing free food packets to those who needed them. In 2022, he launched Ek Dakey Abhishek, a toll-free helpline allowing residents to raise problems directly with his office. The initiative that drew the most praise, however, was Shrodhyargho, a scheme under which thousands of TMC workers voluntarily contributed their own money to fund a monthly pension of Rs 1,000 for around 70,000 senior citizens in the constituency.
The party argues that these programmes explain the margins. The opposition argues that the margins explain why nobody dares to vote otherwise.
Both narratives have circulated for years in Bengal’s political conversation, and neither has been fully resolved. What is clear is that on Wednesday, with NIA agents on the ground, an encounter specialist on standby and EVMs allegedly found taped, Diamond Harbour once again lived up to its reputation as the place where Bengal’s most uncomfortable questions tend to gather.
May 4 may finally force some answers.
Bureau Report
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