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New Delhi: A controversy has erupted in West Bengal’s political circles after a prominent participant in Bangladesh’s 2024 student movement was found on the voter list of the Kakdwip assembly constituency.

The protester has been identified as Newton Das. Pictures of Das actively protesting in Bangladesh have gone viral, sparking widespread alarm, particularly given Kakdwip’s proximity to the Sundarbans and the India-Bangladesh border.

Caught in the spotlight, Newton Das released a video claiming Indian citizenship. He asserted he visited Bangladesh in 2024 to settle ancestral property matters and became inadvertently embroiled in the ongoing revolution there.  “I went to Bangladesh in 2024 to claim ancestral property and got caught up in the revolution there,” Newton Das claimed in a video

According to Das, he has been a voter in Kakdwip since 2014, but in 2017, he lost his voter card. In 2018, with the help of Trinamool Congress ( TMC) MLA Manturam Pakhira, he got a new voter card. for whom he claims to have voted in the 2016 Assembly elections. Kakdwip constituency falls in the South 24 Parganas district.

However, adding complexity to the narrative, his cousin, Tapan Das of Kakdwip, countered that Newton was born in Bangladesh and has exercised voting rights in both countries, The Hindu reported. “Since he was born in Bangladesh, he is a voter of Bangladesh too,” The Hindu quoted Tapan Das as saying, adding, “It is his fault that he is registered as a voter in both countries.”

The incident has swiftly escalated into a major political battle. Senior TMC leader and cabinet minister Shashi Panja confirmed the administration has launched an investigation to ascertain how Newton Das’s name and citizenship status were registered on the voter list. Meanwhile, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has seized upon the controversy, launching a scathing attack on the ruling TMC. The state BJP unit decried the presence of a “Bangladeshi protester” voting in both nations, terming it no ordinary incident.

The incident has swiftly escalated into a major political battle. Senior TMC leader and cabinet minister Shashi Panja confirmed the administration has launched an investigation to ascertain how Newton Das’s name and citizenship status were registered on the voter list.

Meanwhile, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has seized upon the controversy, launching a scathing attack on the ruling TMC. The state BJP unit decried the presence of a “Bangladeshi protester” voting in both countries, terming it no ordinary incident.  “This isn’t an accident. This is the TMC blueprint – flood Bengal’s voter rolls with illegal infiltrators and secure elections with ghost votes,” BJP posted on X.

Opposition leader Suvendu Adhikari claimed that lakhs of Bangladeshi citizens are already registered as voters in West Bengal, even alleging that a member of the Bangladeshi militant group Ansarullah Bangla was found on a Murshidabad voter list.

West Bengal BJP chief Sukanta Majumdar slammed the incident as an example of the “so-called Egiye (progressive) Bangla Model,” asserting that “thousands of Bangladeshi ‘Newtons’ voting in Bengal” are a direct result of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s “infiltration theory and appeasement politics,” suggesting it’s a “blueprint for Greater Bangladesh.”

“Thousands of Bangladeshi ‘Newtons’ voting in Bengal – courtesy of (Chief Minister) Mamata Banerjee’s infiltration theory and appeasement politics,” he alleged. “With illegal voters and these lathi-wielders miscreants as her support base, she’s not running West Bengal… she’s scripting a blueprint for Greater Bangladesh.”