CPM state secretary and Murshidabad candidate Md. Salim was busy on the ground on his day of reckoning, travelling extensively — not backing down from confrontations — in the constituency to ensure that he was seen and heard through the polling hours.

Salim travelled over 270km (back and forth), visiting five of seven Assembly segments in the Murshidabad Lok Sabha constituency and said at the end of the day that he was confident of victory.

At 8am, the 66-year-old Salim — who had gone out of his way to ensure that seat sharing with the Congress worked out in Bengal — left the Behrampore CPM office for Raninagar, 25km away.

There, at a booth in the Lochonpur village, he found out that the CPM agent, Mustakim Sheikh, had been beaten up and forced to flee. Salim found him hiding in a banana orchard nearby and ensured his hospitalisation.

The CPM candidate then went to the booth and caught hold of an alleged Trinamool Congress worker posing as the CPM agent. Amid heated exchanges at the booth, Salim ensured that the police picked up the alleged imposter.

Salim’s next destination was the Mohanpur Primary School, around 10km away, where Trinamool workers raised slogans demanding his departure. They did not want him to access the booth, apparently unaware that he could do so as a candidate. Amid a scuffle, Salim allegedly pushed a Trinamool worker, Masadul Sheikh, into a drain.

In Gopinathpur, 4km away, he got into a scuffle with Trinamool’s booth unit chief, Hitler Sarkar.

“By the early polling hours, Salimda ensured media attention and forced the machinery of the Election Commission to sit up. He was out with a purpose and achieved it,” said an Alimuddin Street insider.

CPM district secretary Jamir Mollah said separate teams of the Congress, too, were on the move, keeping a close watch on the situation and intervening whenever necessary to avert malpractices by the ruling dispensation.

Thereafter, 20km away in Domkal, Salim tried his hand at batting with a few kids playing cricket on a field. He also visited Jalangi, 25km away.

In Nadia’s Karimpur, 25km away, Salim sat down for lunch with his entourage. Late in the afternoon, he went to Hariharpara, 30km away, before returning at 5.30pm.

At 6.30pm, he met journalists for a media conference.

“This is probably the first bloodless election in the history of Murshidabad, with no reports of gun violence or bomb explosions. We had repeatedly prodded the Election Commission of India into doing its job. We were successful and we thank the commission,” he said.

“The counting will take place on June 4. Between now and then, it would be our priority to ensure 24x7 monitoring of the strong room where the EVMs would be stored, along with the Congress,” he added.

Salim said relatively peaceful polling on Tuesday saw people voting for the first time in seven-12 years, citing instances of some exercising their franchise for the first time at the age of 25 or 30.

“I stand confident.... More so because of the healthy turnout of over 80 per cent,” he said.

Asked if his unusually aggressive and confrontational approach on the polling day was a strategy, Salim smiled.