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West Bengal
Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Friday said the Uniform Civil Code will be implemented in West Bengal within six months of the BJP coming to power in the state, and the BJP will make a "son of Bengal" the chief minister. At a press conference after unveiling the BJP's Assembly poll manifesto -- 'Sankalp Patra' -- he accused the Mamata Banerjee-led TMC of practising appeasement politics, and sought to counter TMC's allegation that the BJP would interfere with the food habits of Bengalis. "The recommendation for the Uniform Civil Code is not of the BJP. It is of the Constituent Assembly," Shah said, defending the push for the uniform civil law and claimed that it remained unimplemented for decades because of "appeasement politics". "It was due to appeasement politics that the UCC was not implemented for so long. In whichever states we have formed governments, we have implemented them, and we will do it in Bengal too," he said. The BJP, in its manifesto, has promised to implement the
The BJP on Friday promised a hardline stand on infiltration, Rs 3,000 monthly assistance for every woman and unemployed youth and setting up the Seventh Pay Commission for state employees within 45 days of assuming power in West Bengal following the Assembly polls. Unveiling its 'Sankalp Patra' for the West Bengal assembly poll, Union Home Minister Amit Shah described the document as a roadmap for creating a 'Sonar Bangla'. He launched a blistering attack on the incumbent Mamata Banerjee government, alleging that the last 15 years of Trinamool Congress rule had been a "nightmare" for the people of the state. "The BJP Sankalp Patra will guide farmers, youth and women, giving them a new direction. It will offer renewed hope to every citizen who takes pride in Bengal's culture and will serve as a roadmap for the creation of Sonar Bangla," Shah said. Seeking to make infiltration and border security a central election issue, Shah said a BJP government in the state would adopt a policy o
The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear on April 13 a fresh plea along with pending ones challenging the freezing of electoral rolls by the Election Commission ahead of the upcoming assembly polls in West Bengal. The poll panel has frozen and finalised the electoral rolls on April 9 for the assembly seats which are going to polls in the first stage. Assembly elections in West Bengal will be held in two phases on April 23 and 29 and votes will be counted for all polls on May 4. The freezing of electoral rolls means that no new person, who has been deleted, can be added to the voters list for this assembly polls. A bench comprising Chief Justice Surya Kant and justices Joymalya Bagchi and Vipul M Pancholi was urged by a lawyer to take up the plea against freezing on an urgent basis. The lawyer said many appeals against deletions from the electoral rolls are still pending and the poll panel has frozen the rolls on April 9. "We will consider the petition on April 13," the CJI ...
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday accused the BJP of deleting names of over 90 lakh people from the voter lists to grab power in the state and asserted that her party will win the upcoming elections. Addressing a public rally at Minakhan in North 24 Parganas, the TMC supremo said the ruling party would move a court to ensure that all those deleted from the electoral rolls are reinstated. "You deleted names of over 90 lakh people to grab power in Bengal, but we will win," she said while attacking the BJP over the Special Intensive Revision exercise in the state. Her comments came after nearly 91 lakh voters' names were deleted from the electoral rolls following the completion of the SIR exercise in the state. The TMC supremo also alleged, "People are being tortured in BJP-ruled states for speaking in Bengali. It terms Bengali as a foreign language, and described Bengali-speaking people as infiltrators.
Former Union minister Abu Hasem Khan Choudhury died in Kolkata due to age-related ailments, his family said. Choudhury, popularly known as Dalu, was 89. He is survived by wife and a son, Congress's Malda Dakshin MP Isha Khan Choudhury. His death marks the end of an era in the politics of Malda district, where he remained a key figure for decades. Choudhury, a veteran Congressman, had been suffering from multiple age-related complications. He died at a private hospital in Kolkata late on Wednesday, his family said. The last rites will be performed in Malda on Thursday. Born on January 12, 1938, into the prominent Khan Choudhury family of Malda, Dalu Choudhury entered politics under the guidance of his elder brother, the venerable ABA Ghani Khan Choudhury, also a former Union minister. After his brother's demise, he emerged as the principal political figure in the family and played a crucial role in maintaining the Congress's hold over the district. He served as an MLA of the Kali
The Union Home Ministry on Wednesday ordered the deployment of 150 additional companies of Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) and state armed police battalions in West Bengal to ensure free and fair Assembly elections, an official communication said. With this, the total deployment has been increased from around 2,400 companies to 2,550, according to sources. Earlier, 480 companies were deployed, followed by an additional 1,920 companies announced on March 19, with instructions to complete deployment by April 17. The latest deployment includes 95 companies of CAPFs, comprising the CRPF, BSF, CISF and SSB, and 55 companies from state armed police forces drawn from Assam, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand, the communication said. The forces are to be inducted by April 18, it added. A senior EC official said the move is aimed at strengthening security arrangements across sensitive constituencies. "The Commission has assessed the ground situation and dec
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday hit out at the BJP and the Election Commission over voter deletions during the SIR exercise and said her party will move a court again to resist the removal of electors from the rolls. Her comments came after nearly 91 lakh voters' names were deleted from the electoral rolls following the completion of the Special Intensive Revision in the state. "You will not be able to defeat the TMC by deleting names. We will move a court again to resist the exclusion of names," Banerjee said while attacking her principal challenger BJP over the roll revision exercise. Banerjee had in February argued in the Supreme Court as she sought an intervention in the SIR process. The EC figures, which pushed the total deletion to over 90.83 lakh names from the original voter base of 7.66 crore in October 2025, showed that the proportion of removal of electors now remains at over 11.85 per cent. Addressing a poll rally at Arambagh in Hooghly district
West Bengal's 2026 assembly elections will be fought on an electoral map radically redrawn by the SIR, which has wiped out over 90.83 lakh names from the rolls, upending the arithmetic in scores of constituencies and throwing both the TMC's citadels and the BJP's expansion zones into fresh uncertainty. The state's electorate has shrunk from 7.66 crore to 6.77 crore, forcing the TMC and the BJP to fight the two-phase elections later this month on terrain very different from the one on which Mamata Banerjee stormed back to power in 2021. The deepest cuts have come in the districts that have long determined who rules Bengal -- the minority-heavy belts and the southern zone that have underpinned the TMC since 2011, and the Matua-refugee pockets of North 24 Parganas, Nadia and parts of north Bengal that powered the BJP's rise after 2019. Yet the political fallout is not uniform. The TMC's once-formidable cushions in south Bengal appear thinner, while the BJP remains entrenched in north .
Nearly 91 lakh voters have been deleted from the electoral rolls in West Bengal following the Special Intensive Revision exercise in the state, according to data released by the Election Commission. The poll panel is yet to announce the finally altered voter base for the state after the roll revision process. According to official data released on February 28, 63.66 lakh names, around 8.3 per cent of the electorate, were deleted since the SIR process began in November last year, reducing the voter base from about 7.66 crore to just over 7.04 crore. More than 60.06 lakh electors, who were placed in the "under adjudication" category, were part of the 7.04 crore voter base. Over 27.16 lakh of 60.06 lakh 'under adjudication' voters have been deleted during a scrutiny by judicial officers, the EC data said. More than 32.68 lakh of those in the 'under adjudication' category have been retained and included in the final rolls. The final deletions, since the beginning of the SIR process,