New Delhi, April 19 -- Mobarak Hossain is a ward member in Chachanda gram panchayat under the Samserganj Assembly constituency in Murshidabad, nearly 280 kilometres north of Kolkata, along the eastern bank of the Bhagirathi river near the India-Bangladesh border.

In the days leading up to an Assembly election, Hossain, 50, would typically be immersed in campaigning across his ancestral village. But on the afternoon of 17 April, five days before the assembly polls, the scene is strikingly different. Seated inside his ceramic tile shop, Hossain watches as his staff handles a customer purchasing tiles in bulk.

Hossain is engaged in an entirely different task today. Surrounded by a small group of people, he is examining a stack of documents...