Author: Samiddha Chakraborty

A defining structural transition reshaped Karnataka’s political landscape on Friday, May 29, 2026, as Governor Thaawarchand Gehlot officially accepted the resignation of Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, dissolving the sitting Council of Ministers. The high-profile exit follows a closed-door consensus engineered by the Congress high command in New Delhi, honoring an unwritten, rotational power-sharing formula established during the party’s decisive 2023 electoral victory. While Siddaramaiah will temporarily head state administration as caretaker Chief Minister, his long-time rival and organizational strongman, Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar, stands poised as the definitive successor to the state’s apex executive office. Amid highly emotional demonstrations by AHINDA support groups outside the official residence in Bengaluru, both leaders projected a unified front, flying to Delhi to iron out upcoming cabinet expansions. The transition now moves to a formal legislative track, with a critical Congress Legislature Party (CLP) meeting summoned for Saturday, May 30, to officially elect Shivakumar as the new leader before the scheduled oath-taking ceremony on the steps of Vidhana Soudha.

The Supreme Court of India on Wednesday, May 27, 2026, delivered a landmark judgment unanimously upholding the constitutional validity of the Election Commission of India’s (ECI) Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. A division bench comprising Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi ruled that under Article 324 of the Constitution and Section 21(3) of the Representation of the People Act, 1950, the poll body possesses clear, plenary powers to launch large-scale verification drives to purge duplicate, dead, or shifted entries. Rejecting public interest petitions that argued the exercise would trigger arbitrary mass disenfranchisement in states like Bihar and West Bengal, the apex court observed that free and fair elections fundamentally depend on the absolute credibility of voter logs rather than just the mechanics of polling day. Crucially, the bench clarified that while the ECI is legally empowered to conduct a limited, “rebuttable” inquiry into an elector’s citizenship to verify structural eligibility, its findings do not constitute a final legal declaration of citizenship, ordering the ECI to instantly forward all disputed deletions to competent tribunals under the Citizenship Act for a time-bound final adjudication

The organizational fabric of the All India Trinamool Congress suffered a catastrophic post-election collapse on Tuesday, May 26, 2026, as more than 100 municipal councillors resigned across seven major civic bodies in West Bengal. Driven by structural panic after the Suvendu Adhikari-led government announced rigorous audits into civic expenditures, mass resignations crippled crucial industrial belts including Bhatpara, Halisahar, and Kanchrapara. Most notably, a bloc of eight councillors defected from the Diamond Harbour Municipality—the high-profile bastion of TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee—citing local highhandedness. The operational gridlock has pushed the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) into severe turmoil following dramatic visual standoffs where municipal chambers were found padlocked, alongside the issuance of targeted demolition notices to properties linked to Abhishek Banerjee. As Urban Development Minister Agnimitra Paul begins aggressively deploying state-appointed administrators to preempt total municipal paralysis ahead of the monsoons, a beleaguered Mamata Banerjee convened an emergency unity huddle, even as veteran Lok Sabha MP Dr. Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar broke ranks to flag deep internal “criminalization” and attend administrative sessions with the newly formed BJP executive.

26th May | kolkata A towering statue of football legend Lionel Messi in Kolkata has come under intense scrutiny after residents reported that the structure appeared to sway during strong winds, raising fears over public safety.The 70-foot-tall statue, installed near the Lake Town Clock Tower crossing along VIP Road, was unveiled in December 2025 during Messi’s much-publicised India visit as part of his “GOAT Tour”. The installation quickly became a major attraction for football fans in the city, known for its deep-rooted football culture. However, recent incidents have shifted attention from admiration to concerns about the statue’s structural stability.According to…

The internal fault lines within the All India Trinamool Congress broke wide open on Sunday, May 24, 2026, as senior leader and four-time Lok Sabha MP Dr. Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar resigned as the president of the party’s Barasat organizational district unit. Taking absolute “moral responsibility” for the TMC’s crushing defeat in the North 24 Parganas stronghold—where the surging BJP flipped five out of seven assembly segments—Dastidar sent her resignation to state party president Subrata Bakshi. The high-profile exit from the district leadership comes just days after she was stripped of her Chief Whip position in the Lok Sabha. In an explosive critique of the party’s current trajectory, the veteran Mamata Banerjee loyalist openly slammed the unchecked influence of political consultancy firm I-PAC, warned against the creeping “criminalization” within party ranks, and urged the leadership to immediately abandon corporate blueprints in favor of traditional, grassroots street mobilization.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has made a major breakthrough in the NEET-UG 2026 paper leak case by arresting a Pune-based school headmistress and physics lecturer, Manisha Sanjay Havaldar. Identified as an expert panelist appointed by the National Testing Agency (NTA), Havaldar allegedly abused her complete access to the physics section by leaking exam questions to co-accused Manisha Mandhare back in April. Investigators confirmed that the leaked data perfectly matched the official question paper sets of India’s largest medical entrance exam, which was conducted on May 3 and subsequently cancelled. This 11th arrest, arriving just 40 days before Havaldar’s scheduled retirement from Sheth Hiralal Saraf Prashala, has exposed the core insider ring of the “examination mafia” alongside a network of middlemen charging students lakhs of rupees for clandestine coaching sessions.

22nd May | West Bengal More than two months after the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls began in West Bengal ahead of the Assembly elections, the process of hearing appeals against voter deletions continues to move at a slow pace.According to official data, 12 of the 19 tribunals set up following Supreme Court directions had disposed of only 6,581 appeals by mid-May, despite nearly 24.98 lakh appeals being filed by voters whose names were removed from the electoral rolls.The tribunals were constituted on March 20 after the Supreme Court intervened amid allegations of large-scale wrongful deletions during the…

Senior leaders of the Congress triggered political speculation in Uttar Pradesh after a group of party leaders made an unannounced visit to the residence of BahujanSamaj Party chief Mayawati in Lucknow. However, the leaders were reportedly denied entry by security personnel as no prior appointment had been scheduled.

Amid growing concerns over West Bengal’s recently enforced animal slaughter regulations ahead of Eid-ul-Adha, Indian Secular Front leader Naushad Siddiqui has appealed to the state government to simplify the certification process for cattle slaughter and prevent hardship for traders and poor families.

15th may | India The Supreme Court on Thursday expressed concern over the Centre’s 2023 law governing the appointment of the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) and Election Commissioners (ECs), questioning whether the present mechanism gives excessive control to the executive and affects the perceived independence of the Election Commission of India (ECI).A bench comprising Justices Dipankar Datta and Satish Chandra Sharma was hearing petitions challenging the constitutional validity of the Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners (Appointment, Conditions of Service and Term of Office) Act, 2023. The law replaced the Chief Justice of India (CJI) with a Union Cabinet…