As Nandigram and Rejinagar constituencies in West Bengal go to the polls on October 6, several local journalists in Murshidabad district, where Rejinagar is located, have alleged that access to their news Facebook pages has been restricted in India. These outlets primarily covered Opposition parties and the limited campaigning they were able to carry out in the constituency.
The notices they received stated: “We repeatedly had to restrict access to content posted by you pursuant to legal requirements under India’s Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules… We have accordingly temporarily restricted access to your account for 7 days in India.”
Two Seats: Little in Terms of Electoral Contest
Byelections are being held in these constituencies because the elected representatives also won from other seats in the state elections earlier this year. The Nandigram assembly constituency has about 2.5 lakh people, with Muslims accounting for around 27% of the electorate. It is Suvendu Adhikari’s home constituency. In 2021, Adhikari defeated former chief minister Mamata Banerjee here by 1,956 votes. In the 2026 assembly polls, he won from Nandigram as well as Bhabanipur. He chose to retain the Bhabanipur seat where he defeated Banerjee, necessitating the byelection in Nandigram.
The Nandigram contest took an unexpected turn when the candidate of the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress faction, Sanchita Pradhan Dey, withdrew her nomination on September 18. Banerjee then decided to support Congress candidate Milan Pradhan. However, within hours of Banerjee announcing her support for Pradhan, he was arrested in connection with old cases related to the 2007 Nandigram violence. Congress and the TMC questioned the timing of the arrest, while the BJP said the police action was based on pending cases and involved no political intervention. He was later granted interim bail by the Calcutta high court.
Rejinagar presents a different electoral landscape, with Muslims accounting for around 69% of its electorate. The constituency was a closely watched seat in the 2026 assembly election. Aam Janata Unnyan Party (AJUP) leader Humayun Kabir won both Nowda and Rejinagar and subsequently vacated the latter, where his victory margin was more than 58,000 votes.
The Rejinagar by-election has seen little campaigning by the main Opposition candidates, who allege police intimidation and interference by the ruling party. The Banerjee-backed Trinamool Congress faction has fielded former three-term MLA Rabiul Alam Chowdhury, who had considered withdrawing from the contest before Banerjee persuaded him to stay. The Congress has fielded Abdullahil Kafi, while the Democratic TMC faction has nominated Safiuzzaman S K and the CPI(M) Saeed Asad Ali.
Kabir has alleged that police arrested 15 of his workers in what he calls false cases, while others have fled the area. He was also questioned twice over a viral audio clip. He says he has therefore halted major campaigning and is reaching voters primarily through Facebook, while his son continues to visit some areas. Independent candidate Saiful Islam, who is close to the AJUP leadership, was arrested on September 19.
With arrests, alleged intimidation, and lack of opposition campaigning, the elections in both the seats appear to offer little in the way of a competitive contest.
Facebook Pages Reporting Local News Restricted
With the Opposition campaign already muted in both constituencies, the election is also unfolding amid allegations of censorship in Rejinagar. Local journalists who reported on issues critical of the government or law enforcement, or covered Opposition campaigns, suddenly found their Facebook pages, which were their primary outlets for publishing their work, restricted in India.
Alt News identified at least 12 such pages: Murshidabad Global Times run by Asif Roni; Hariharpara Times Bangla run by Jabbar Sheikh; Murshidabad Today run by Swapan Karigar; Murshidabad Shironam run by Rinku; Murshidabad News Time run by Baktar Sk; Reporter Press run by Rajib Sheikh; M News TV run by Muhaimenul Haque; Bartabahi News run by Aminul Islam; Hi News run by Saidur Rahman; BNS News Bangla; AN Bangla News run by Abdus Samad; and News Front Digital run by Abdul Halim.
Swapan Karigar’s Murshidabad Today, which had a following of around 7.4 lakh, was among those worst affected. A practising journalist with more than 26 years of experience, he now has a restricted account, limiting his ability to report on politics ahead of the election.
Karigar said the page had been reporting allegations of intimidation by police made by residents who support Opposition parties, including AJUP and the Congress. “A lot of common people, who have aligned themselves with opposition parties like AJUP and Congress, people who have, say, walked in political rallies, have alleged that their family members, especially women and children, are being intimidated and tortured by police officials. They (the police) have visited these houses with 12-14 cars, even. A child was also pulled by her hair, and a woman was physically assaulted. They have totally created an atmosphere of fear and intimidation before the election. We were covering these incidents, upholding the truth. That is probably why our accounts have been withheld,” he told Alt News.
We spoke to Asif Roni, whose Facebook page, Murshidabad Global Times, had around 4.47 lakh followers before it was taken down on the night of October 1 — the same day chief minister Suvendu Adhikari visited Rejinagar. Roni said the page had recorded 39 million views in the preceding 28 days. Law enforcement officials told him that the page would be withheld for seven days.
“This happened once around April, right before the assembly election,” he said. “I used to run a different page called AN Bangla. It still hasn’t been reactivated. They shut quite a few pages then, and those haven’t been restored either. So I had to switch to Murshidabad GT, which used to be a backup page.”
Roni said that after the earlier restriction, a senior police official had told him that the page would be restored “after the election”.
Jabbar Sheikh, who runs Hariharpara Times Bangla, told us that his Facebook page, which had around 4.39 lakh followers, was taken down on September 30, after it published a report on Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury. “More than thirty pages have been restricted. The main reason is that we covered news about the Opposition parties, especially Humayun’s campaign. So there was possibly a political motive. It’s the Indian government that did it. The pages don’t show in India, although they would show in other countries,” Jabbar said.
This was the first time Jabbar had faced such a restriction. He, too, approached police, but said officials told him they had not ordered the restrictions. “They told us that Meta itself had found guideline violations and restricted the pages on that basis, and that cyber crime had no hand in it,” he said.
For a lot of local journalists, publishing news content on Facebook was their only source of livelihood.
It took Swapan Karigar six years to build Murshidabad Today. “This has never happened before. This was my only source of income. I know nothing apart from journalism. I have another small page with around 14,000 followers, and I am posting non-political content from there now. I can’t give up my profession, but I’m cutting down on political content for the time being,” he said. The page had around 24 million views before it was restricted.
Roni said around 25 to 30 such pages had been restricted across the district. When we asked why these pages had been targeted, he said he was told that they had published news that could be perceived as anti-government. “Mostly they’ve closed those who give a bit more coverage to the Opposition political parties’ news. For me, they restricted it after I posted my report on Adhir Chowdhury,” he said.
Roni now publishes from another page, MGT, which has around 15,000 followers. Jabbar is similarly posting content from a second page with barely 2,000 followers.
“All of our pages were monetised. Good money came from it, and a lot of us were getting by. Educated, unemployed youth started this trend alongside other things,” Roni said.
They are not Journalists, Says Murshidabad SP
We spoke to Sachin Makkar, superintendent of police, Murshidabad, who first asked us to “read the notice carefully”.
“Does the notice mention the police or the cyber crime wing? You should contact Meta about this. Does it say that the police restricted the pages?” he asked. When we pressed further, he said, “I do not have a lot to say on the matter. And they are not journalists; they are not accredited journalists. Whatever action has been taken, we have not done it. You can talk to Meta about the rest…”
It is worth noting that the notices received by the administrators say the pages were withheld pursuant to legal requirements. This indicates that the restrictions followed a legal request or complaint concerning the content on these pages, rather than being solely the result of Meta’s own content-moderation process.
We have written to Meta seeking details of the requests it received and the reasons for restricting the pages. This article will be updated if and when we receive a response.
