One-party election: BJP looks to sweep Nandigram with help from police and Trinamool turncoats

At a busy roundabout in Nandigram town, Milan Pradhan was shouting into a mic connected to a loudspeaker mounted on an e-rickshaw.

With a few days left to go before the October 6 bye-election in Nandigram, the Congress candidate was trying hard to campaign. But it was a futile effort. Drowning out his e-rickshaw were much more powerful loudspeakers sitting atop a white Scorpio parked just a few metres away. This was the Bharatiya Janata Party’s campaign car announcing on loop that Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari would tour the constituency the following day.

Some Congress workers demanded that the sports utility vehicle be moved from the spot – but to no avail. Personnel from the Central Armed Police Forces watched the kerfuffle unfold silently from a coconut water stall nearby.

Pradhan’s e-rickshaw was clearly no match for the Scorpio – a stark symbol of the one-sided nature of the political contest in Nandigram, five months after the BJP formed the government in West Bengal.

Since 2021, the high-profile seat has been represented by Adhikari himself. This time, the BJP has fielded the mother of his murdered political aide Chandranath Rath.

However, the bye-poll has been mired in controversy from the start. First, the candidate from the Mamata Banerjee-led faction of...

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