Basirhat: TMC's SK Nurul Islam emerged victorious after defeating his opponent BJP's Rekha Patra with a margin of 3,23,247 votes. Patra was trailing by 3,21,776 votes whereas TMC's SK Nurul Islam secured his big win in the hot seat of the Basirhat Constituency along the Indo-Bangla border.
This constituency was in the highlights for some wrong reasons. Sandeshkhali, one of the Assembly constituencies of this Lok Sabha seat had grabbed the headlines since January this year when an Enforcement Department team was badly assaulted by a group of villagers after they went on a raid at the house of Trinamool Congress strongman Sheikh Shahjahan.
As Shahjahan went into hiding, hundreds of residents, mostly women, poured out their anger against the highhandedness of the TMC strongman and his associates. The allegations ranged from physical assault, molestation, intimidation to land grabbing.
Though Shahjahan was eventually arrested, Trinamool Congress did not take the risk of repeating its actor-candidate Nusrat Jahan Ruhi from Basirhat. Instead, they chose a party man, Haji Nurul. The biggest surprise was from the BJP when they fielded Rekha Patra, one of the first women to register a complaint against Shahjahan.
PM Modi had campaigned for her and had taken personal interest in the seat. The Left had also tried to cash in on Sandeshkhali by nominating former Sandeshkhali MLA Nirapada Sardar. The fight had been an intense one, but Sandeshkhali again grabbed all media attention on polling day when Islam won from here.
