Jahangir Khan Withdraws In Falta But The Act Has No Legal Basis
Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator. Author of Cyber Scams in India, Digital Arrest, The Money Trap and The Human Hack
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By Sunil Garodia
First publised on 2026-05-19 13:01:05
About the Author
Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator. Author of Cyber Scams in India, Digital Arrest, The Money Trap and The Human Hack
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Two days before the May 21 re-poll in Falta, TMC candidate Jahangir Khan walked up to a microphone and announced he was stepping away from the contest. He spoke of peace, development, and a special package being provided by Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari. It was a remarkable press conference - part resignation speech, part political conversion, entirely theatrical. And from a legal standpoint, it meant absolutely nothing.
Under the Representation of the People Act, 1951, a candidate's right to withdraw nomination is strictly time-bound. The Election Commission fixes a last date for withdrawal as part of the election schedule, typically several days before polling. Once that window closes, no withdrawal is legally permissible. The candidate's name is locked onto the ballot - or in this case, into the Electronic Voting Machine - and no press conference, no letter, no public renunciation can alter that. Jahangir Khan may have declared himself out of the race, but the law has not.
This creates a peculiar situation. His name will appear before every voter in Falta on May 21. Anyone who chooses to vote for him may do so. If he were to win, which is highly unlikely, he would be the validly elected MLA, and no legal provision exists to disqualify him simply because he told journalists he didn't want to contest. He would have to take oath, and only a subsequent resignation from the Assembly seat could undo the result.
The only legally recognised form of withdrawal is a written notice submitted to the Returning Officer within the prescribed period under Section 37 of the RP Act. A statement to the press carries no such weight. It is a political act masquerading as a legal one, and the Election Commission has neither the mechanism nor is under any legal obligation to act on it.
The practical consequences, however, are real enough. With the candidate himself having publicly disowned the contest, TMC is unlikely to field polling agents at booths, run any ground operation, or motivate workers to turn out. This is effectively a walkover for the BJP, achieved not through the ballot but through the collapse of the opposing side. Suvendu Adhikari put it with characteristic bluntness, saying Khan had no option because he wouldn't be able to find a polling agent anyway, so he chose to run away.
The TMC's official response has been to distance itself from Khan, calling his decision personal and not a party directive. The party also pointed to a climate of intimidation, with allegations that over 100 workers have been arrested, as the backdrop against which this surrender occurred. Notably, the Calcutta High Court had granted Khan protection from coercive police action just the day before his announcement, which makes the timing of his withdrawal all the more telling. A man who secured court protection on Monday walked away from the fight on Tuesday.
The Falta re-poll was itself ordered by the Election Commission after serious irregularities during the original West Bengal Assembly elections - ballot unit buttons allegedly covered with black tape, unauthorised persons found entering booths. The re-poll was meant to give Falta voters a clean election. What they have now is a contest in which the principal opposition candidate has publicly abandoned the field without being legally permitted to do so, his name still on the machine, his party in disarray, and the outcome a foregone conclusion. Whether that qualifies as a clean election is a question the Election Commission would do well to answer.
