Bengal
Surinder Koli, the prime accused in the infamous 2006 Nithari serial killings who was acquitted by the Supreme Court in 2025, was found dead in Haridwar on September 18. The incident followed a national seminar in Visakhapatnam where senior jurists and media professionals scrutinized investigative lapses by the CBI and questioned the lack of media follow-up for the victims’ families.
In a startling turn of events, Surinder Koli, the prime accused in the 2006 Nithari serial killings who was acquitted by the Supreme Court in 2025, was found dead inside his Haridwar tea stall on September 18. The incident closely follows a national seminar in Visakhapatnam where senior jurists and experts scrutinized the press and the CBI over systemic investigative failures that denied justice to victim families.
The Election Commission of India has frozen the Trinamool Congress name and ‘Flowers & Grass’ symbol for the October 6 bypolls, assigning separate interim designations to factions led by Mamata Banerjee and Arup Roy. Amid an urgent Supreme Court challenge by the party supremo, an emerging Congress-Mamata alignment has prompted the resignation of Trinamool’s Nandigram nominee.
Former West Bengal minister and senior Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader Udayan Guha was arrested on Thursday in connection with a cheating case dating back to 2016. The arrest has generated significant political attention across the state, with leaders from both the ruling and opposition camps reacting strongly to the development.
The political crisis engulfing the Trinamool Congress (TMC) reached a high-voltage flashpoint on Monday, June 15, 2026, when the Lok Sabha Speaker’s office slapped TMC National General Secretary Abhishek Banerjee with a thin, two-hour ultimatum to appear in New Delhi—at the exact moment he was locked inside an 11-hour interrogation by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in Kolkata. The dramatic standoff unfolds as the Mamata Banerjee-led party battles a massive parliamentary rebellion, with 20 out of its 28 sitting Lok Sabha MPs—led by Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar—petitioning Speaker Om Birla to recognize their formal merger with the Tripura-based Nationalist Citizens Party of India (NCPI), effectively tilting their allegiance to the BJP-led NDA. While Banerjee was isolated from his communication devices at the ED’s Salt Lake CGO complex in connection with a 2023 primary teacher recruitment scam, an urgent email dispatch from New Delhi at 2:00 PM demanded his presence at Parliament by 4:00 PM. Sounding the alarm, fellow lawmaker Kirti Azad physically intercepted the Speaker’s secretariat, clarifying that the Diamond Harbour MP was legally detained by federal investigators and could not fly out. Emerging from the marathon grilling near midnight—which followed an 8-hour state CID interrogation the previous day—a defiant Banerjee struck an uncompromising tone to reporters, declaring that even if his opponents “slit his throat,” he would not cower down to coordinated central pressure.
West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari visited North Bengal and the Darjeeling Hills on Tuesday, marking his first official visit to the region since assuming office.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) carried out extensive, simultaneous search operations at multiple properties linked to Trinamool Congress (TMC) MLA and former West Bengal minister Madan Mitra.
Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari has announced that elections to the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) will be conducted by December 7, 2026, paving the way for the formation of a newly elected civic board in Kolkata.
The ongoing political turmoil within West Bengal’s ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) has intensified into a full-blown constitutional and legal battle. Following a major internal split, rebel leader Ritabrata Banerjee declared that his faction is prepared to approach the Election Commission of India (ECI) to stake an official claim to the party’s identity and symbol.
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