Mamata Banerjee fended off a spirited challenge by a resurgent Bharatiya Janata Party in West Bengal with a landslide victory for her Trinamool Congress on Sunday for a third consecutive term and the saffron party and the Left Democratic Front were poised to form government again in Assam and Kerala respectively while the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam stormed back to power in Tamil Nadu after a gap of 10 years.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke to Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal over phone and discussed about the prevailing condition on Monday.
Interestingly, the Muslim representation in West Bengal assembly has dropped this time when compared to what it was in 2016, even as members of the community voted en masse for the Mamata Banerjee camp.
'It's a classic conflict between the old and the new BJP. The new BJP is made up of turncoats and the old of veterans who slogged for decades when the BJP barely existed in West Bengal'
Over 5,000 people were witnessing an open-air show organised to mark the Rash Mela festival when three crude bombs exploded on the premises of Kantaji Temple in northwestern Dinajpur.
Noor, niece of Congress stalwart A B A Ghani Khan Choudhury, have quite often been taking stands which were not in line with that of the party's state leadership.
Banerjee said the state is targeting to shift at least 10 lakh people to safer places in a bid to avoid any loss of life.
Aggrieved by the violence that marked the panchayat poll in West Bengal which claimed at least 12 lives and left 43 injured, several candidates who were in the fray had met the SEC officials and demanded the repolling.
Heavy rains in the last three days triggered flash floods in parts of Bihar, where 41 people have died so far, and inundated large areas in Assam and North Bengal, paralysing normal life and snapping rail link to the Northeast from the rest of the country.
Complaints of electronic voting machine malfunctioning poured in from several booths on Tuesday during the third and largest phase of Lok Sabha polls which saw voters turning out in large numbers to cast their vote in 116 seats, including all constituencies of Gujarat and Kerala.
Though the BJP is running too close for comfort, populist schemes and support among Muslims may help Mamata Banerjee overcome the challenge, observes Aditi Phadnis.
Muslims across the country have joined the agitation, apprehending that the move could be a precursor to a country-wide NRC.
The ruling Trinamool Congress held the Bharatiya Janata Party responsible for the blast and alleged that the saffron party was aiming to kill South Dum Dum Municipality chairman and TMC leader Panchu Roy. But the BJP rubbished the charges.
'With sufficient gaps between polling dates, the BJP will have time to convert the 'fence-sitter' votes,' observes Payal Mohanka.
The people of West Bengal have lost faith in the state police and therefore their demand for deployment of central forces, Nayak said.
Rajneesh Gupta profiles the cricketers playing the World Cup 2019.
The Trinamool Congress on Wednesday swept the municipal polls in Bengal, capturing four of seven civic bodies and breaking the 10-year-old hold of the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha in the hills.
This classification of districts is to be followed by states and union terrotories till a week post May 3, when the second phase of lockdown will end, for containment operations.
'It did not start as a Hindutva slogan.' 'It started to tease the TMC and slowly it got internalised and the BJP started countering with Jai Shri Ram slogans because Mamata was getting provoked.'
The MeT department warned of heavy to very heavy rainfall in Gangetic West Bengal till Saturday, ahead of Durga Puja festivities.
Top Lashkar-e-Tayiba bomb expert Abdul Karim Tunda was on Wednesday remanded in seven days' police custody by a Delhi court after the investigators said those who had allegedly helped him in illegal infiltration of Pakistani nationals are yet to be identified.
Taking exception to Health Minister Harsh Vardhan not mentioning the death of healthcare workers due to Covid-19 in his statement in Parliament, the Indian Medical Association has published a list of 382 doctors who died due to the viral disease and demanded that they be treated as "martyrs".
When Pope Francis canonizes the late Mother Teresa at the Vatican on September 4, she will officially be recognised as a saint of the Roman Catholic Church. However, for her followers in Kolkata, the title is a mere formality.
Mohd Zakariya, a close aide of top Lashkar-e-Tayiba bomb expert Abdul Karim Tunda, was on Monday remanded to 10- day police custody by a Delhi court after the investigators said he had helped in illegal infiltration of Pakistani nationals into India through Bangladesh.
Barring Maharashtra, the poll percentage in rest of the states was in excess of 60 per cent while in Puducherry it was 80.47 per cent.
Several places in Arunachal Pradesh, including capital Itanagar, were cut off by floods and landslides.
'The Left's decline is now a reality, both nationally and in West Bengal.'Behind it lie: Ideological rigidity and confusion, outdated party programmes... a socially conservative upper-caste leadership,' says Praful Bidwai.
Lieutenant General J F R Jacob, Chief of Staff, Eastern Army Command during the 1971 war, revealed how, armed with only a draft surrender document and an aide, he made the Pakistani army led by Lieutenant General A A K Niazi surrender.
Lieutenant General J F R Jacob, Chief of Staff, Eastern Army Command during the 1971 war, revealed how, armed with only a draft surrender document and an aide, he made the Pakistani army led by Lieutenant General A A K Niazi surrender.
Lieutenant General J F R Jacob, Chief of Staff, Eastern Army Command during the 1971 war, revealed how, armed with only a draft surrender document and an aide, he made the Pakistani army led by Lieutenant General A A K Niazi surrender.
Lieutenant General J F R Jacob, Chief of Staff, Eastern Army Command during the 1971 war, revealed how, armed with only a draft surrender document and an aide, he made the Pakistani army led by Lieutenant General A A K Niazi surrender.
Lieutenant General J F R Jacob, Chief of Staff, Eastern Army Command during the 1971 war, reveals how, armed with only a draft surrender document and an aide, he made the Pakistani army led by Lieutenant General A A K Niazi surrender.
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