Kolkata: Fifteen years after she stormed Writers’ Buildings, scripting history as Bengal’s first woman chief minister, Mamata Banerjee on Sunday missed another brush with history — to be the country’s longest-serving woman chief minister.Banerjee changed Bengal politics in 2011, ending the Left’s 34-year term. Her Singur’s 2006 anti-land acquisition movement—which later helped reshape India’s land…
Kolkata: The BJP’s “outsider” tag in West Bengal, which had already weakened over the past one and a half years, ostensibly withered away as Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah started campaigning for their party candidates. Both focused on hyper-local issues to move away from the high-decibel “outsider” narrative that hit…
Tamluk/Darjeeling/Jalpaiguri/Purulia/Jhargram: The BJP has delivered a sweeping blow to the Trinamool Congress across eight districts of Bengal, tightening its grip over large parts of north Bengal and Jangalmahal while scripting a total rout in East Midnapore, where it won all 16 Assembly seats.From the hills of Darjeeling and Kalimpong to the forests of Jhargram and…
Kolkata/Howrah: BJP made significant gains in the Barrackpore and Howrah industrial belts, with results shaped largely by economic grievances linked to industrial decline and factory closures.In Barrackpore, Bhatpara, Noapara, Jagaddal, Naihati and Bijpur, BJP’s performance marked one of the sharpest reversals for Trinamool in a region it had dominated since 2011. Voters in these densely…
Kolkata: Trinamool Congress’s traditional grip on Kolkata was shattered on Monday as a wave of anti-incumbency tore through its urban fortress, leaving a trail of high-profile electoral casualties that included party chief Mamata Banerjee and several ministers.In a staggering reversal of its 2021 performance — where the party swept all 16 seats in the city…
Kolkata/Nandigram: For Suvendu Adhikari, the architect of the 2021 giant-slaying of Mamata Banerjee, Nandigram has once again proven that “Dada’s backyard” remains impregnable.Hours after the election results confirmed his second consecutive victory from this high-stakes battlefield, BJP insiders said it was a foregone conclusion and that it had been “game, set and match” in favour…
Kolkata: Non-industrialisation, joblessness and often unchecked corruption triumphed over cultural-culinary fears on Monday.Trinamool Congress went to polls with party chief Mamata Banerjee framing the contest as a battle for Bengali identity against a hostile central govt. Tactics included how Bengali migrant workers were being targeted in other states, the BJP‘s alleged dictates on non-veg food…
Kolkata: Throughout the campaign, Mamata Banerjee leaned on her 2021 playbook, famously asserting that she was the ‘sole candidate’ in all 294 seats. This time, however, the strategy backfired. The gap between the leadership’s high-octane rhetoric and the grim ground reality became an unbridgeable chasm.In a political earthquake that has shattered nearly 15 years of…
UDF leads in Kerala with 59 seats, majority mark at 71 In Kerala, where 140 assembly seats are at stake and the majority mark stands at 71, the UDF is currently leading in 59 constituencies, placing it 12 seats short of a majority if these leads hold. The LDF is trailing with a tally of…
In Kharagpur, West Bengal, counting is still under way with BJP’s Tapan Bhuya currently leading the contest with 6,673 votes. Sitting TMC legislator Dinen Roy, who holds the incumbent’s seat, is trailing at 4,114 votes, putting the margin between the two at 2,559. Roy, 70, carries 17 criminal cases on record while Bhuya, 50, has…
