Three persons were shot dead and several others were injured as violence and arson marked the conclusion of nomination filing for the three-tier West Bengal panchayat polls slated next month.
At least 12 companies of Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) reached West Bengal on Saturday morning as the state prepares to go to elections, officials said.
The Winter session of Parliament will be held from December 1 to 19, Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju announced on Saturday, in what the opposition has described as an 'unusually delayed' and truncated session.
Over one crore voters are eligible to exercise their franchise to decide the political fate of 342 candidates.
Assembly elections in Assam, Kerala, Puducherry, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal are due in 2026.
Budget 2026 sticks to fiscal discipline, shuns populist measures despite five key state elections coming up, but ends up rattling stock markets with a higher transaction tax on derivatives trading.
Bengal, where the electoral discourse has mostly steered clear of divisive agenda, has been drawn into the vortex with the TMC and the BJP accusing each other of fanning communal sentiments ahead of elections.
One of the high-profile contests in the high-stakes Bengal polls is likely to be a direct fight between Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and her former confidant and now BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari in Nandigram seat.
Violence rocked parts of West Bengal over the filing of nominations for the July 8 panchayat poll as activists of the ruling Trinamool Congress and opposition parties clashed prompting the police to use force to disperse the mob.
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) distanced itself from the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) on Friday, saying it is not part of the opposition alliance anymore and questioning the Congress party's role in leading it.
In a series of tweets, the Home Department of the West Bengal government said the Governor's act of making the letter public was "violative of all established norms, and disrupts sanctity of such communications".
Kharge said conducting polls in seven phases meant that nearly all the development works will be stopped.
Mamata asserted that she has not spoken to anyone in the Congress on seat-sharing in the state for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.
The Congress on Friday posted its second worst performance in Bihar's electoral history, managing to win only six of the over 50 seats it contested and losing deposits in most seats as its 'vote chori' pitch failed to make any impact on the ground.
All the four special units of the investigating agency tasked to probe the cases of violence have moved their units from Kolkata to crime scenes across the state, sources said.
The SEC, which held a meeting on Sunday evening, went through reports of vote-tampering and violence which affected polling in many places, and passed the order, an official said.
The other three crore -- nearly 40 percent -- will have to provide one of the 11 listed documents to establish their place or date of birth.
Addressing an Eid prayers programme on Red Road in Kolkata, the Trinamool Congress supremo claimed, "Provocations are being made to fuel riots, but please don't fall into these traps. The West Bengal government stands with the minorities. No one can provoke tensions in the state."
The Congress has been critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah for holding political rallies amid the rise in coronavirus cases in the country.
According to the report, there are 16 sitting MPs and MLAs who have declared cases related to rape under Indian Penal Code Section 376, which carries a minimum sentence of 10 years and can be extend to life imprisonment.
The Election Commission of India is preparing for a nationwide special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, following a Supreme Court ruling. This move aims to update voter lists and address concerns about illegal migrants.
Election will be held in 60 out of the total 294 seats in the first two phases of the eight-phased polls which is slated to stretch from March 27 to April 29. The date for the second phase of election is April 1.
Addressing a massive Martyrs' Day rally in Kolkata, Banerjee gave a clarion call to defeat the Bharatiya Janata Party in the 2026 assembly elections and eventually oust it from power at the Centre, declaring, "If this linguistic profiling doesn't stop, our resistance movement will reach New Delhi."
State Election Commissioner Rajiva Sinha on Thursday said that the village council elections will be held on a single day, with the deadline for filing nominations set for June 15. The votes will be counted on July 11.
This second tranche of citizenship certificates were issued on Wednesday, days before the final phase of voting for Lok Sabha polls on June 1.
A TMC worker, identified as 52-year-old Jiyarul Molla, was shot dead in Phulmalancha area in Basanti in South 24 Parganas district late on Saturday night while he was returning home, a police officer said.
Sporadic post-poll violence continued on Tuesday in West Bengal claiming several lives as chief minister Mamata Banerjee asked officials to act decisively and Prime Minister Narendra Modi rang up Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar to express anguish over the law-and-order situation.
Struggling to gain political traction on issues of corruption, the West Bengal Bharatiya Janata Party is shifting its focus to emotive topics such as the Ram Temple in Ayodhya and the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in a bid to achieve its target of securing 35 out of the 42 Lok Sabha seats from the state.
The top court, however, granted liberty to all candidates to approach the West Bengal State Election Commission for appropriate relief.
Counting of votes in all elections will be held on May 2.
The court directed the State Election Commission, the state government and the central government to file affidavits dealing with all the allegations made in three petitions alleging malpractices.
A day after announcing the dates for assembly polls in West Bengal, the Election Commission on Saturday removed Additional Director General of Police (Law and order) Jawed Shamim and brought in Jag Mohan in his place, an official order said.
Of the 294 candidates declared with serious criminal cases, 76 were from the TMC, 52 from the BJP, 47 from the CPI-M and 31 from the Congress.
The juggernaut of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance, which triumphed in three of the four east and north-eastern states that went for assembly bypolls on Saturday, was halted yet again in West Bengal where Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress registered a six-on-six clean sweep.
TMC leader Abhishek Banerjee accuses the BJP of being 'Bangla-Birodhi' (anti-Bengal) and alleges they want to send Bengalis to detention camps. He vowed to electorally wipe out the BJP in the 2026 Bengal Assembly polls.
Maintaining that the INDIA alliance is for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and not for assembly polls in any state, the Congress on Friday asserted that the opposition bloc of 27 parties exists and will fight together.
The welfare schemes of the government, particularly Lakshmir Bhandar, have had a major impact on the electoral outcome.
Supporters of the Indian Secular Front (ISF) clashed with police in West Bengal on Monday during protests against the Waqf (Amendment) Act, leading to several injuries and the torching of multiple police vehicles. The clash occurred after police stopped ISF supporters from attending an anti-Waqf Act rally in Kolkata. The protests escalated when the crowd attempted to break through police barricades. The situation was brought under control after a large police force was deployed. ISF leader Naushad Siddique condemned the Waqf Act and accused the BJP of trying to incite communal tension. Meanwhile, the ruling Trinamool Congress dismissed the ISF as a "party of no consequence." Communal violence related to the Waqf Act has also occurred in other parts of West Bengal.
The EC said polling percentage in the Anantnag-Rajouri seat in Jammu and Kashmir is the highest in 40 years.
An approximate voter turnout of 59.06 per cent was recorded in the sixth phase of the Lok Sabha elections on Saturday in 58 constituencies across six states and two Union territories with the polling percentage in the Jangal Mahal region of West Bengal touching 78.19.
