The unrest in the Sandeshkhali region of West Bengal ballooned into a major political row on Thursday as Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee blamed the saffron camp of fomenting trouble in the area, while the Bharatiya Janata Party and the National Commission for Women (NCW) accused her party Trinamool Congress and the state government of being complicit in crimes against women in the area.

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Leaders of the West Bengal Congress unit, which has an alliance with the CPI-M-led Left Front in the state, were seen welcoming the Left leaders.

The Congress will begin the Rahul Gandhi-led Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra from the violence-hit Manipur on Sunday, in what is being seen as the party's bid to set the narrative in the run-up to the Lok Sabha polls and put the spotlight on issues such as unemployment, price rise and social justice.

Three battalions of the Border Security Force comprising more than 3,000 personnel will move across the border from Odisha to Chhattisgarh and an equal number of Indo-Tibetan Border Police units will further move into the Naxal stronghold of Abujhmad as part of a strategy to intensify anti-Maoist operations in their last bastions, official sources said.

Modi's BJP has promised more revdis or freebies for these assembly elections than ever before, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.

'As a police officer, I had gone on deputation to the prison department; on both occasions (the hanging of Ajmal Kasab and Yakub Memon), the government said that I should remain present.' 'I was not mentally prepared for these sensitive operations and had to work on myself to lead the teams.'

At least 10 Indian-Americans, almost all of them Democrats, have won local and state level elections held in several parts of the country, reflecting the growing political empowerment of the ethnic community that constitutes a little over one percent of the United States' population.

Women account for 35 per cent of the 860,000 people employed in startups in 2022, compared to 19 per cent in the corporate sector.

He said that as India aspires to become the voice of the Global South, it cannot be discussed without discussing the problems of people in Palestine.

'Society deals with you the way they do, or forms an opinion, depending on if your family is with you every step of the way.'

Contests in 13 seats would attract most attention during the Chhattisgarh assembly elections as they feature prominent leaders of the Congress and BJP.

These are the 15 seats to watch out for in Rajasthan where assembly elections will be held on November 23. The state has 200 constituencies.

As Madhya Pradesh goes to polls, all eyes will be on 29 key assembly seats, out of the total 230, where the contest will be keenly watched.

'...Now, we are dominating because we have the right facilities. We have the IPL, the richest board is India and India is the powerhouse'.

Tafajjal Hossain polled 33,849 votes in the by-election to the Boxanagar seat while CPI-M's Mizan Hussain got only 3,884 votes.

High voter turnout was recorded in most of the seven assembly constituencies in six states where by-elections were held on Tuesday.

While the opposition alliance is putting up a united front in Ghosi constituency in Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand's Dumri, Dhanpur and Boxanagar in Tripura and Uttarakhand's Bageshwar, its constituents are contesting against each other in Dhupguri in West Bengal and Puthuppally in Kerala.

The bypoll on September 5 is also a litmus test for all three political outfits, with the BJP hoping to check its erosion in its vote share and retain the seat, the TMC aiming to wrest the tribal-dominated assembly segment and the CPI(M)-Congress alliance hoping to regain its traditional seat.

NCP leader Ajit Pawar on Saturday received a grand welcome in Baramati, which is his assembly constituency and also the pocket borough of party chief Sharad Pawar, on his first visit after joining the Bharatiya Janata Party-Shiv Sena government in Maharashtra and parting ways with his uncle.

The people of Amethi want to rectify their 'mistake' of 2019 and Congress workers as well as leaders are demanding that Rahul Gandhi contest from the constituency in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, the party's Uttar Pradesh chief Ajay Rai said.

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'We know these are mind games Ajit dada is playing, but he (Sharad Pawar) doesn't get swayed by such gestures.'

According to insiders, "talks are on" between the Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray and the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena at "an exploratory level".

'When I felt that the party is drifting away from Hindutva, I tried to speak to Uddhavji. But nobody was ready to listen.'

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At the end of the day, Stalin expressing solidarity with an arrested colleague is one thing, especially if he too felt that the minister had been wronged, but for him to retain the person in office sets a bad precedent, which would not go unnoticed by voters, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.

The status of the current submarine force level is alarming and we need to address the threat perceptions expeditiously. Critical decisions pertaining to national security cannot be delayed any further due to the rapidly changing maritime threat perceptions and growing strategic importance of the Indian Ocean region, asserts Commodore Venugopal Menon (retd).

'I think my first obsessive, possessive and only half-requited -- as we would joke -- 'love' was Ivan. I saw him first slouching down the corridor of St Stephen's College nearly 50 years ago and was instantly smitten (as was everyone else around him).'

'The world that we live in today has no space for nuance or conversation or debate.' 'So how does a small film that's not made for the sole reason of earning back your money and which is actually trying to say something that's fragile find its way?'

'It is not just about numbers. Sometimes coalitions and alliances have symbolic value.'

Why weren't the chief ministers of Andhra Pradesh, Goa, Kerala, Maharashtra and Telangana -- all of which have borders with Karnataka -- not invited to Saturday's swearing-in ceremony, asks Shyam G Menon.

'We will win all the 28 Lok Sabha seats in 2024.'

'The BJP's defining character is Hindutva. The party's political strategy is based on a combination of Hindutva+Development.'

The Congress on Saturday made a stunning comeback in Karnataka ousting the Bharatiya Janata Party from its lone southern citadel with a comfortable majority in a morale booster win that will be key for reviving its electoral fortunes ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

The Congress would also take inspiration from history as it was from Karnataka that an embattled Indira Gandhi had revived her dwindling political future by winning a Lok Sabha bypoll from Chikmagalur.

The Bharatiya Janata Party's comprehensive defeat to the Congress in Karnataka where the two parties ran a campaign of contrasts has left the ruling party much to ponder as the two rivals are facing a direct contest in three more state polls this year in the run-up to the all-important 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

Several pollsters have predicted that the Congress may have an edge in Karnataka, which is BJP's southern citadel, in a hung assembly with a couple of them even projecting that the grand old party may get a majority on its own.

The top guns of all the major political parties were on a campaign blitz across the state in the past few days, even as the ruling BJP has been striving to break the 38-year-old pattern of alternating governments and retain its southern citadel.

There are 18 assembly constituencies in the border district which is a Lingayat stronghold and has been a BJP bastion in the last two decades.