Punjab, Oct. 9 -- Counting began at 8am on Friday in Nandigram and Rejinagar, and the BJP is leading in both. The more striking fact about Nandigram is who is not on the ballot: the Trinamool Congress, which has held the seat's politics hostage for five years, is not contesting it at all.
Nandigram without Trinamool
Trinamool's candidate, Sanchita Pradhan Dey, withdrew her nomination at the last moment. That left the BJP's Hasirani Rath against the Congress's Milan Pradhan in a constituency that has been the single most symbolically loaded seat in West Bengal since 2021, when Suvendu Adhikari beat Mamata Banerjee there.
The seat fell vacant this year because Adhikari, having won both Nandigram and Bhabanipur in the 2026 election, chose t...