AJUP candidate Golam Nabi Azad alleged voters and party workers were being intimidated and prevented from exercising their franchise in the Rejinagar bypoll amid his father Humayun Kabir's arrest.

AJUP candidate Golam Nabi Azad on Tuesday alleged that voters were being prevented from exercising their franchise in the by-election to West Bengal's Rejinagar, where his father and party chief Humayun Kabir was arrested following a showdown with police during polling.Azad alleged that party workers, leaders and voters had faced intimidation for nearly two months, and accused the police of conducting house raids, vandalising properties and threatening people in areas with a sizeable minority electorate.

"If people were able to cast their votes, I would have accepted the result. But people are not being allowed to exercise their franchise. What is the use of such a by-election?" he said.
Claiming that voters were being turned away from polling booths after being told that their votes had already been cast, Azad also alleged that election agents were being prevented from entering polling stations.
"In the last 10 days, police had gone to extreme lengths, going house to house, vandalising properties and intimidating people. They threatened voters, telling them that if they went out to vote, they would face consequences after the bypoll," he alleged.
The allegations could not be independently verified.
The accusations came amid a confrontation between Kabir and police personnel at the AJUP office in Rejinagar. Kabir, who had cast his vote with his family earlier in the day, had repeatedly accused the police of intimidating voters and acting at the behest of Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari.
He was initially detained following the confrontation and subsequently arrested on charges of attempting to influence voters and incite them, a police officer said.
Murshidabad Superintendent of Police Sachin Makkar said Kabir was neither a candidate in the bypoll nor an authorised election agent and could not move around in the manner he had been doing.
Before his detention, Kabir had urged residents to resist alleged police excesses with 'mugurs', or heavy wooden clubs. He had also accused the police of deploying personnel near his residence and polling booths to intimidate his supporters, alleging that Adhikari had "released Alsatians at every booth".
The developments added to the tension surrounding the Rejinagar contest, where Azad is seeking to convert his father's political support base into an electoral win for the Aam Janata Unnayan Party (AJUP).
The seat fell vacant after Kabir won both Rejinagar and Nowda in the assembly elections earlier this year and subsequently retained Nowda, necessitating the bypoll.
Azad is facing a multi-cornered contest against BJP candidate Sakharav Sarkar, Mamata All India Trinamool Congress nominee Rabiul Alam Chowdhury, Democratic Trinamool Congress candidate Safiuzzaman Sheikh, Congress nominee Mohammad Abdullahil Kafi and CPI(M)'s Syed Asad Ali.
The fragmented contest has placed the minority vote at the centre of the electoral battle, with rival parties seeking to consolidate their support amid shifting local loyalties.
Meanwhile, BJP state president Samik Bhattacharya expressed confidence that his party would win both Rejinagar and Nandigram.
Speaking in Jalpaiguri, Bhattacharya claimed that even minority voters in Rejinagar wanted industrial development rather than a mosque modelled on the demolished Babri Masjid in Ayodhya.
"Many people may not believe that the BJP will win Rejinagar, but even members of the minority community there are saying they want factories, not a Babri Masjid," he said.
The Babri Masjid reference relates to Humayun Kabir's controversial proposal to build a mosque modelled on the demolished Babri Masjid in Murshidabad, which became a political flashpoint in the state. He said the BJP's victory margin in Nandigram would be five times its previous record. 
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