Editors Pick
Once bitter political and ideological rivals, the CPI(M) and CPI(M-L) have of late mended fences. Now CPI(M) leadership will have All India Students’ Association (AISA), the students wing of CPI(M-L) together with it in an agitation on education and youth issues in West Bengal.
Three Lok Sabha MPs of the National Congress Progressive Initiative (NCPI) on Tuesday skipped the NDA parliamentary party’s weekly Mangal Milan meeting for the second time, bringing to the fore apparent differences within the 20-member breakaway Trinamool Congress (TMC) faction over its proximity to the BJP-led alliance.
Jan Suraaj Party (JSP) founder Prashant Kishor scripted a major political upset in Bihar by defeating the Bharatiya Janata Party candidate in the Bankipur Assembly byelection, a constituency represented for five consecutive terms by the BJP’s national president Nitin Nabin. The BJP retained Manjalpur in Gujarat while the Congress held on to Madhya Pradesh’s Datia in other Assembly byelections.
The CPI(M) will launch a 1,000-km ‘Bangla Bachao Yatra’ on November 29, a statewide mobilisation it claims will expose “injustice, loot and systematic democratic erosion” under the TMC-led state government while countering what it calls the BJP-led Centre’s “anti-people policies” that have deepened distress across Bengal.
The United Nations has said that the verdict against Bangladesh’s ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina on charges of crimes against humanity is an “important moment” for the victims, but expressed regret over the imposition of the death penalty.
The NDA is expected to apply the same formula for portfolio allocation that it used during ticket distribution, coalition insiders indicated. Under the emerging arrangement, Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) will continue to hold the Chief Minister’s post. Meanwhile, the BJP and Chirag Paswan’s LJP (Ram Vilas) are each likely to secure one Deputy Chief Minister position, signalling a balanced power-sharing structure within the alliance.
The Congress on Thursday demanded that Prime Minister Narendra Modi should immediately chair an all-party meeting in the aftermath of the Delhi blast and asked whether the “new normal doctrine” defined by the government following the Pahalgam attack of treating any future terror strike as an ‘act of war’ stands.
BJP National General Secretary B. L. Santhosh, along with Northeast Coordinator Sambit Patra, arrived in Manipur on Wednesday and held a crucial meeting with BJP MLAs at the party’s state headquarters in Imphal. The meeting was presided over by State President A. Sarda Devi. The closed-door session was attended by BJP MLAs from both the hills and the valley, including former Chief Minister N. Biren Singh, Speaker Th. Satyabrata Singh, and Rajya Sabha MP Leishemba Sanajaoba. However, MLAs from the Kuki community were notably absent.
The Opposition Mahagathbandhan “no holds barred” campaign centred around the “vote chori” allegations and the spirited efforts by Prashant Kishor’s fledgling Jan Suraaj Party will fail to dethrone the Nitish Kumar-led NDA government in Bihar, or so predict the exit polls. The average of all exit polls foretells a sweeping victory for the ruling alliance in Bihar.
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