In the run-up to the West Bengal Assembly elections slated for March-April next year, the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) and the principal Opposition BJP are caught in a new conflict, this time over two of the state’s cultural icons – Rabindranath Tagore and Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay.
The skies over Bihar turned into a battleground for weeks, as helicopters and chartered planes carried top politicians across the state in a campaign of unmatched scale and cost. By Sunday evening, the airborne armada fell silent, marking the end of campaigning for the second phase of assembly elections after more than 450 sorties, according to news sources.
In Bihar’s highest-ever voter turnout, nearly 65% of 3.75 crore electors cast their ballots on Thursday across 121 constituencies in the first phase of the assembly elections — a high-stakes contest seen as a litmus test of the ruling NDA’s popularity.
Following the decision of the West Bengal government to exclude a large number of different Muslim communities from the state’s Other Backward Classes (OBC) list, the West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is being heavily criticized.
Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday once again targeted the Election Commission of India (ECI) over alleged “vote chori” (vote theft) and electoral irregularities.
Controversy has been caused by a scathing article by senior Congress MP Shashi Tharoor labeling dynastic politics as a serious threat to the Indian democracy, with a specific reference to the Nehru-Gandhi family, which has solidified political leadership as a birthright, and demands political reforms to make India more meritocratic.
Stepping up her attack on the special intensive revision (SIR) of voter list in the State, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday led a protest march in Kolkata and asserted that she would ensure the fall of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government at the Centre if a single eligible voter was omitted from the electoral rolls.
Congress MP Rahul Gandhi has sparked a fresh controversy with his remarks suggesting that only a small section of the population — primarily from upper castes — dominates key institutions in India, including the armed forces, reports said.
At a first glance, a war of words seems to be raging between Trinamool Congress and BJP leaderships in West Bengal in the run up to the 2026 Assembly elections in the state. But a second glance, longer and more searching at the two poll bound political outfits reveals the TMC leadership to be more focussed while the state saffron unit is yet to fix its priorities.
Predominance of caste system has been stated to be the bane of Bihar, but it’s forthcoming election is witnessing regional allies of BJP and Congress getting a lion’s share of seats lest the caste equation go awry. Keenly aware of the deciding role of caste in voting behaviour, the leadership of both the national level parties have left the constituencies reserved for Scheduled Caste candidates to the regional allies.
