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.
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.
Former Kolkata Mayor and once a Trinamool Congress heavyweight, Sovan Chatterjee formally returned to TMC on Monday (November 3, 2025) after a 7-year break. Once a close aide of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, he had also joined the opposition Bharatiya Janta Party for a brief period, but termed it a “Himalayan mistake” after leaving.
The newly appointed Vice-Chancellors (VCs) of six state universities in West Bengal by Governor C. V. Ananda Bose signify a significant change in the management of higher education in the state and the long-running stalemate on the appointment of the important leadership roles.
In a political converging point that happens rarely, both the Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] and the Trinamool Congress (TMC) have received the recent Supreme Court order on the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) with open arms, terming it as a “victory of the rural poor” and a “reminder of the government’s responsibility to its people.
The 2025 edition of the Kolkata International Film Festival (KIFF), starting November 6, will open with the eternal Uttam Kumar–Suchitra Sen romantic classic Saptapadi (1961), minister Aroop Biswas announced at a press conference on Tuesday at Rabindra Sadan. Marking 50 glorious years of Sholay, director Ramesh Sippy will be in Kolkata to deliver this year’s Satyajit Ray Memorial Lecture, one of KIFF’s most-awaited and prestigious sessions.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressing “surprise and shock” at the Centre’s unilateral appointment of an interlocutor for the “issues relating to Gurkhas in Darjeeling hills, Terai and Dooars regions of West Bengal”.
After flocking in droves to a meeting of Prime Minister Narendra Modi or Union home minister Amit Shah and making a beeline for the podium, it seems the good times are over for these BJP leaders of West Bengal. No longer can they afford to be conspicuous by their absence at the house of a slain party activist or a vandalised saffron camp unit, post a directive from BJP’s central observer for West Bengal, Bhupendra Yadav.
In a recent development, Akhtar Ali, the former deputy superintendent of the state-run RG Kar Medical College & Hospital in Kolkata and a key whistleblower in the financial irregularities case at the medical institute in the state, tendered his resignation on Monday.
The recent observation by West Bengal Governor C.V. Ananda Bose *”I can’t say Bengal is safe for women”* has raised a storm of concern and debate across the state. His statement, made in reply to journalists, has thrown open new debates on women’s safety, governance, and ground reality for women across rural and urban Bengal.
