A man allegedly linked to the 2024 students’ protests in Bangladesh was found to be a voter in West Bengal’s Kakdwip Assembly constituency, The Hindu reported on Sunday.

Several images of the man, identified as Newton Das, participating in the agitation in the neighbouring country were widely shared on social media.

Das has claimed that he was an Indian citizen but acknowledged that he had actively participated in the protests in Bangladesh, The Hindu reported.

“I went to Bangladesh in 2024 for issues related to an ancestral property and got caught in the revolution,” The Hindu quoted Newton Das as saying in a video. “I have been a voter in Kakdwip since 2014 but lost my voter card in 2017.”

Newton Das said that he had received a fresh voter card in 2018 with the help of Trinamool Congress MLA Manturam Pakhira. He also claimed that he had voted for Pakhira, who represents Kakdwip, in the 2016 Assembly polls, The Hindu reported. The constituency is in South 24 Parganas district.

“This is a conspiracy against me by a particular community,” India Today quoted Newton Das as saying in the video.

He did not specify whether he was currently in India or Bangladesh.

His cousin Tapan Das, who resides in Kakdwip, claimed that Newton Das was born in Bangladesh and had exercised voting rights in both countries, The Hindu reported.

Tapan Das claimed that his cousin had gone to Bangladesh after the Covid-19 pandemic to sell land and had not returned.

“Since he was born in Bangladesh, he is a voter of Bangladesh too,” The Hindu quoted Tapan Das as saying. “It is his fault that he is registered as a voter in both the countries.”

Kakdwip is close to the Sundarbans and India’s border with Bangladesh.

Political row

The incident sparked a political row in the state.

The Bharatiya Janata Party’s West Bengal unit on Sunday criticised West Bengal’s ruling Trinamool Congress claiming that a “Bangladeshi protester” was voting in both countries.

“Let that sink in,” the Hindutva party said on social media. “This isn’t an accident. This is the TMC blueprint – flood Bengal’s voter rolls with illegal infiltrators and secure elections with ghost votes.”

West Bengal “isn’t just lawless – it’s compromised from within”, the BJP claimed.

BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari claimed that lakhs of Bangladesh citizens were registered as voters in the state, The Hindu reported. The Opposition leader claimed that an alleged member of Bangladeshi militant group Ansarullah Bangla was also enlisted as a voter in Murshidabad.

West Bengal BJP chief Sukanta Majumdar on Saturday described the incident as an example of the “so-called Egiye [progressive] Bangla Model”.

“The same Newton who was seen wielding a stick during Bangladesh’s quota reform movement is now a registered voter in Kakdwip,” the BJP leader said on social media.

“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.”

The Trinamool Congress rejected the BJP’s allegations and said that the responsibility for border security was with the Border Security Force, India Today reported. The Border Security Force reports to the Union home ministry.

“Whether these people come from land, water or air, the BSF and Union government are responsible,” The Hindu quoted Trinamool leader Kunal Ghosh as saying. “The state administration will do its role for sure.”

The state’s ruling party also claimed that the Election Commission was complicit in voter list tampering.

In February, Banerjee had accused the BJP of allegedly attempting to add residents of Gujarat, Rajasthan, Punjab and Haryana to West Bengal’s voter lists. The chief minister had also accused the BJP of adding fake voters to electoral lists to win the Assembly elections in Delhi and Maharashtra.

In 2024, weeks of widespread student-led protests in Bangladesh against Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her Awami League government had led to her resignation and her fleeing to India on August 5.

In August, weeks of student-led protests in Bangladesh against a controversial quota scheme for government jobs snowballed into a broader agitation against the Sheikh Hasina government.

Hasina was ousted from power after being the prime minister of Bangladesh for 16 years.