Alipurduar: The voter information slip issued by the Election Commission and distributed by booth-level officers (BLOs) ahead of the first-phase elections on April 23 has gained unexpected traction among voters across north Bengal as the new “vital document.” ...
27 April 2026 TelegraphCPM supporter Jyotindranath Das, a retired police personnel and a resident of Debinagar in Raiganj, has taken up the initiative to reduce visual pollution in his town while showing respect for his preferred party’s flags.Since Saturday morning, Das has ...
27 April 2026 TelegraphThe Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) posted on the India-Nepal border at Panitanki in the Siliguri subdivision on Friday apprehended a US national who was born in Nepal and seized $21,500 from him.Sources said the SSB personnel posted near the ...
27 April 2026 TelegraphA share trader who was also a Congress supporter was beaten to death by youths in front of his wife and 10-year-old son following an altercation in Asansol in the early hours on Saturday. Piyali Chatterjee, the wife of ...
27 April 2026 TelegraphLeader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, on Saturday bracketed Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, accusing both of fostering corruption, nepotism and a culture of intimidation while eroding the foundational ethos of ...
27 April 2026 TelegraphUnion home minister Amit Shah's threat of hanging goons upside down to set them straight, aimed at Trinamool Congress cadres since before April 23, has triggered a war of words between the BJP's No. 2 and Trinamool's No. 1.Speaking ...
27 April 2026 TelegraphMigrant labourers and craftsmen are not the only people rushing back to Bengal to vote, fearful of being struck off the rolls as “absent voters” if they don’t make it to the booths.The same fear is haunting executives, techies, ...
27 April 2026 TelegraphThe Election Commission enforced its own “Diamond Harbour model” late on Friday night by cracking the whip on five police officers, including an IPS officer, from the seven Assembly seats that make up Trinamool No. 2 Abhishek Banerjee’s Lok ...
27 April 2026 TelegraphChief Minister Mamata Banerjee cut short her speech at a rally in her Bhabanipur constituency, alleging that the BJP was deliberately playing loud music from a nearby public meeting.A peeved Banerjee said despite having the required permission of the ...
27 April 2026 TelegraphTrinamool Congress national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee on Saturday asserted that his party will return to power in West Bengal after winning 225-odd seats in the 294-member assembly.Addressing an election rally in Bally, Banerjee, who is considered number 2 ...
27 April 2026 TelegraphRahul Gandhi landed in Calcutta to campaign for Congress nominees in Bengal after a decade on Saturday. The last time he had come to campaign for the Bengal Assembly election was on April 27, 2016. Rahul, then the national ...
27 April 2026 TelegraphSenior TMC leader Firhad Hakim, who is also a minister in the West Bengal government, has reported a 69 per cent rise in his total asset value over the past five years, which increased from Rs 13.34 crore in ...
27 April 2026 TelegraphA seat that was once a bastion of the Trinamool Congress has been virtually without an MLA for the past three years.That is because the suspected protagonist of the biggest scam to scald the Trinamool regime is the outgoing ...
27 April 2026 TelegraphFifty-five-year-old Rajib Pal, an engineering graduate from Jadavpur University, let go of multiple job offers from outside Calcutta. Pal rode the IT boom in the early 2000s and had a successful career in Calcutta.When it came to his 25-year-old ...
27 April 2026 Telegraph“Please finish the drinks. You can sit for as long as you want. But we have to take the drinks away in 15 minutes,” a waiter at a Park Street restaurant told a group of diners around 5.20pm.Two in ...
27 April 2026 TelegraphUndergraduate students of colleges affiliated to Calcutta University will now write their minor (pass) paper examinations at their own institutions, the university announced on Friday.An undergraduate student pursuing a major (honours) paper is also required to study minor papers.Earlier, ...
27 April 2026 TelegraphThe officers in charge of Kalighat and Alipore police stations were transferred on Saturday, four days ahead of polling on April 29.The city police commissioner has informed the chief electoral officer that Goutam Das of the special branch and ...
27 April 2026 TelegraphThe teachers of Jadavpur University said on Saturday that the institution was born out of a nationalist movement and has never indulged in anti-national activities, refuting allegations made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.In a statement, the Jadavpur University Teachers’ ...
27 April 2026 TelegraphJadavpur University will recognise former students who have excelled in their fields with a distinguished alumni award, as part of an effort to reconnect with its alumni.The move draws on models used by institutions such as the IITs, where ...
27 April 2026 TelegraphAn amended law that many fear could push transgender individuals to the margins, along with concerns over unsafe housing and the possibility of being forced back into the closet, are shaping voting preferences of the city’s LGBTQIA+ community.Across conversations ...
27 April 2026 TelegraphBuses should halt for persons with disabilities, public toilets and Metro stations need better accessibility, and certain public spaces should provide separate queues, said people with disabilities and those who work closely with them.Equity is not a privilege but ...
27 April 2026 TelegraphThe Election Commission has named 11 more police observers for the last phase of elections in Bengal on April 29.The observers include one each for Calcutta North and South, three for South 24-Parganas, and two for North 24-Parganas. With ...
27 April 2026 TelegraphThe Jadavpur University Teachers' Association accused the Narendra Modi government of "undermining public universities while extending support to private institutions" and Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan said Mamata Banerjee’s leadership had weakened Bengal’s institutions as the brouhaha over the ...
27 April 2026 TelegraphLagging in many parameters, Bengal has been consistently featuring on a list of shame, among the top four states with the maximum reported crimes against women.Many feel the safety of women, who constitute around 48 per cent of the ...
27 April 2026 TelegraphA city voter, an assistant professor of history at Claremont McKenna College and an alumna of Jadavpur University, found her name struck off the electoral rolls — a fate she shares with millions who will be denied the chance ...
27 April 2026 TelegraphMore than two dozen residents of a Nadia village, who lost their voting rights, came to Calcutta earlier this week.They were rallied by a platform fighting a legal battle to reclaim people’s voting rights.They were from Debagram village, part ...
27 April 2026 TelegraphIn quantum mechanics, Schrödinger’s cat is both alive and dead until observed. In contemporary India, that paradox has acquired a bureaucratic form. The voter, too, can exist in a state of superposition, simultaneously verified and deleted, present and absent, ...
27 April 2026 TelegraphThe high court on Friday revised the Election Commission’s restrictions on bikes, narrowing the ban on pillion riding to 12 hours before polling instead of the earlier 48 hours.The court ruled that pillion riding will be prohibited only during ...
27 April 2026 TelegraphThe top guns are coming to town.Calcutta is set for a high- voltage political weekend as top leaders from across parties descend ahead of polling on April 29.Apart from chief minister Mamata Banerjee, who will campaign in what is ...
27 April 2026 TelegraphThe city is reeling under the twin assaults of heat and humidity.On Friday, the Met office recorded a maximum temperature of 36° Celsius in Alipore. Paired with high humidity, however, it felt much worse: around 2.30pm, the RealFeel was ...
27 April 2026 TelegraphLiquor shops reopened and bars across the city were back to serving customers on Friday, but demand was muted, said those in the trade.Off-shops opened to long queues of people waiting outside, but the crowd thinned as the day ...
27 April 2026 TelegraphSenior TMC leader Abhishek Banerjee on Friday took a swipe at Modi, saying he had inadvertently become the "biggest brand ambassador" for West Bengal tourism by showcasing the state's Ganga ghats, roads and street food during campaign visits."If Bengal ...
25 April 2026 TelegraphPrivate bus operators in West Bengal have raised concerns over delays and uneven release of advance payments for vehicles taken for election duty, even as polling enters its second phase.The Joint Council of Bus Syndicates said it had informed ...
25 April 2026 TelegraphAt two rallies in West Bengal on Friday, Union home minister Amit Shah set the tone for the Bharatiya Janata Party’s campaign ahead of the assembly elections, mixing sharp political messaging with promises on governance and welfare.In Uttarpara in ...
25 April 2026 TelegraphTo gauge anti-incumbency against the Trinamool government, Behala Paschim—and perhaps even Behala Purba—offers a telling starting point.For years, Partha Chatterjee was not just the MLA from Behala Paschim but also held key portfolios, including education and industry, in the ...
25 April 2026 TelegraphThe Supreme Court of India on Friday directed court-appointed appellate tribunals in West Bengal to grant out-of-turn hearings in urgent cases related to deletion or inclusion of names in voter lists following the special intensive revision of rolls. It ...
25 April 2026 TelegraphPrime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday claimed that the “wave of change” in West Bengal has become evident in the first phase of polling and asserted that the support shown in "favour of the BJP" sounded the conch shell ...
25 April 2026 TelegraphThe Supreme Court on Friday refused to entertain petitions filed by several individuals from West Bengal, including 65 people deployed on election duty, challenging the deletion of their names from the voter list after the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) ...
25 April 2026 TelegraphThe Election Commission has ordered the suspension of the officer-in-charge (OC) of Hingalganj police station in West Bengal's North 24 Parganas district after allegations that he was acting in a partisan manner ahead of the Assembly elections.In a communication ...
25 April 2026 TelegraphAt least two jawans of the central armed police force (CAPF) were injured after a group of villagers in Budhpur village of Birbhum district pelted stones and brickbats at them following an alleged rumour that votes were being recorded ...
25 April 2026 TelegraphSeveral migrant workers from open and closed tea gardens of Alipurduar returned from various states to cast their franchise in the first phase of the Assembly elections, largely driven by concerns that their names may be deleted from the ...
25 April 2026 TelegraphBengal’s electoral battleground on Thursday, the phase one of the Assembly polls, saw the BJP weaponising a 13-second clip of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi against the Trinamool supremo and chief minister Mamata Banerjee.However, Mamata launched a defiant counter-offensive later ...
25 April 2026 TelegraphAs key hill leaders — Anit Thapa, Ajoy Edwards, Raju Bista — expressed hopes of victory for their respective parties in these Assembly polls, a message of restraint surfaced from veteran politician Binay Tamang, drawing from past miscalculations where ...
25 April 2026 TelegraphOn election day in Nandigram, the BJP's Suvendu Adhikari personally surveilled more than 100 booths, while his Trinamool Congress rival, Pabitra Kar, oversaw voting from home for most of the day, visiting only a small number of booths.The BJP ...
25 April 2026 TelegraphIncidents ranging from violence to illness to inconvenience were reported on Thursday during voting in 152 Assembly constituencies across 16 districts in the first phase of the Assembly polls. ...
25 April 2026 TelegraphThe Election Commission has issued a fresh set of post-poll guidelines for the West Bengal Assembly elections, introducing stricter protocols for handling surveillance cameras and preserving video footage after polling ends. The move comes amid the ongoing multi-phase election ...
25 April 2026 TelegraphThe Dhimal community — a group with a history spanning 300 years — has long been striving to secure Scheduled Tribe (ST) status.The Dhimals are a Sino-Tibetan group indigenous to the eastern Terai region of Nepal and India. In ...
25 April 2026 TelegraphSoumyajit Raha lost a 2013 civic bypoll by just 251 votes. “The shutters were pulled down in FE Block and bogus votes were cast,” he recalls, seated in his chamber in AC Block. The 48-year-old lawyer, who receives phone ...
25 April 2026 TelegraphCall it discipline or a poll debutant’s enthusiasm, Sharadwat Mukhopadhyay was among the first to reach the gate of Karunamoyee Housing Complex from where a rally in his support was supposed to start at 7am. The 56-year-old oncologist from ...
25 April 2026 TelegraphSaptarshi Deb is perhaps the only candidate fielded by a major party to stay in New Town (BF Block). He also seems to be the only one in the fray whose campaign has a lot of focus on the ...
25 April 2026 TelegraphThe desert comes to the city in a swirl of ghee, spice and slow-cooked aromas at Taj City Centre New Town, which has returned with its annual celebration of Rajasthani cuisine. At Shamiana, the sixth-floor all-day dining restaurant, a ...
25 April 2026 TelegraphUndergraduate seats in colleges affiliated with Calcutta University are being reduced following an assessment of demand across disciplines.CU’s syndicate on Friday decided to cut seats in four disciplines at Scottish Church College — Bengali, philosophy, Sanskrit and the multidisciplinary ...
25 April 2026 TelegraphThe Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations has decided to divide the second-language syllabus for Bengali, Hindi, and a few other languages between Classes IX and X and Classes XI and XII.Under the system, ICSE (Class X) students ...
25 April 2026 TelegraphSujit Bose, the fire and emergency services minister in the outgoing Trinamul Congress government, is seeking a fifth term as the MLA of Bidhannagar. He has already done several road shows in Salt Lake and one from Dakshindari to ...
25 April 2026 TelegraphCalcutta University has announced a revised schedule for the first-semester undergraduate theory examinations, which were earlier deferred because of the Assembly elections. The examinations will be held from May 11 to May 18. Originally, they were scheduled from ...
25 April 2026 TelegraphAs elections in Calcutta draw near, the two heavyweight candidates in Bhabanipur are set to spend more time in the constituency, stepping up rallies, door-to-door outreach and local meetings, sources in the Trinamool Congress and the BJP said.Mamata Banerjee ...
25 April 2026 TelegraphPolice on Thursday said they had not yet received the arrest warrant against poet Srijato Bandyopadhyay, which a court in Nadia issued on Wednesday.The warrant directed the inspector-in-charge of Golf Green police station to arrest Srijato and produce him ...
25 April 2026 TelegraphPrime Minister Narendra Modi visited Belur Math, the global headquarters of the Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission, on Thursday and paid tributes to Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, Holy Mother Sri Sarada Devi and Swami Vivekananda.Modi arrived around 5pm after addressing ...
25 April 2026 TelegraphThe high court on Thursday pulled up the Election Commission for infringing on people’s rights by imposing restrictions on bikes from two days before polling.The court asked the EC to cite examples from any other state where similar curbs ...
25 April 2026 TelegraphA senior schoolteacher who has been a presiding officer at polling booths for over two decades has been appointed to the role once again. Only this time, the man entrusted with overseeing the voting process is himself an invalid ...
25 April 2026 TelegraphThe dry spell in the city and its neighbourhood continued on Thursday, with no order revoking the earlier ban on the sale and service of alcohol in areas set to vote on April 29.On Tuesday evening, Bengal chief electoral ...
25 April 2026 TelegraphAmit Shah and Mamata Banerjee were both steering “war rooms” on Thursday, the first phase of the Assembly election, with the Union home minister tracking real-time turnout and booth-level feedback in a high-stakes electoral battle from the Calcutta suburb ...
23 April 2026 TelegraphWest Bengal’s first phase of polling in Jhargram saw an unexpected visitor on Thursday morning when a wandering elephant named 'Ramlal' briefly disrupted voting preparations at a booth in the Jangalmahal region.In an election where numbers, narratives and nerves ...
23 April 2026 TelegraphThe BJP’s Bengal unit on Thursday shared on social media a 13-second video clip of Rahul Gandhi’s message to the voters of Bengal and thanked him.“If Mamata ji had run a clean government, if she hadn’t polarised the state ...
23 April 2026 TelegraphA team of the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) arrested two Punjab residents at the Bagdogra airport on Tuesday and seized an illegal consignment of high-grade cannabis from their possession.Ratan Banik, the special public prosecutor representing the DRI, said ...
23 April 2026 TelegraphPolice arrested the brother of the BJP candidate from the Chanchal Assembly seat in Malda on Tuesday evening after ₹2.79 lakh in cash was recovered from his bike.The accused, Biplab Das, 45, is the younger brother of BJP candidate ...
23 April 2026 TelegraphSeveral people travelling to vote in the first phase of the Assembly elections were stranded in Siliguri on Wednesday because of a severe shortage of public transport.Hundreds of commuters, most of them migrant workers, were waiting since early morning ...
23 April 2026 TelegraphFive polling booths in remote and interior areas of Alipurduar district present unique logistical challenges for Election Commission officials during the ongoing Assembly polls.Of the five booths, three are situated in the hilly terrain of Buxa in Kalchini block. ...
23 April 2026 TelegraphRajya Sabha MP Kapil Sibal on Wednesday questioned the massive deployment of security personnel for the Bengal Assembly polls, saying the scenario suggested that the CAPF and the Election Commission, not the BJP, were fighting the elections.Sibal alleged this ...
23 April 2026 TelegraphThousands of migrant workers have returned home ahead of the first phase of the Assembly polls, driven by a mix of apprehension, social pressure and political motivation.One of them is Saidul Sheikh, who reached his home at Hariharpara in ...
23 April 2026 TelegraphA 13-member delegation of international observers reached Siliguri on Wednesday to witness first-hand the electoral process during the Assembly polls.The visit was organised under the Election Commission’s International Election Visitors Programme (IEVP) to showcase India’s democratic practices to global ...
23 April 2026 TelegraphNames of 139 voters, deleted during adjudication, were added to the electoral rolls for the first phase of elections on Thursday after the appellate tribunals cleared their names following a Supreme Court order.The EC uploaded the list of voters ...
23 April 2026 TelegraphChief minister and Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday launched a sharp attack on the BJP, accusing it of coercing migrant labourers into pledging votes in its favour by invoking religion.Addressing public meetings at Amdanga in North 24-Parganas ...
23 April 2026 TelegraphAward-winning poet Srijato Bandyopadhyay said on Wednesday that an arrest warrant had been issued against him.The warrant, issued by the “Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate” of “Krishnagar, Nadia (In-Charge)”, is against “Srijata Bandhopadhyay” and is to be executed by the ...
23 April 2026 TelegraphCampaigning may have stopped in the Darjeeling hills for the Bengal Assembly polls, but the debate brewed stronger across the region on Wednesday, the eve of the polling day.The Darjeeling, Kurseong and Kalimpong Assembly seats have never been so ...
23 April 2026 TelegraphArmoured vehicles roll through the streets. An unprecedented 2,407 companies of central forces have been deployed. Heads of all Central Armed Police Forces held a meeting — never before convened in Calcutta — in a hall packed with uniformed ...
23 April 2026 TelegraphCPM general secretary MA Baby on Wednesday saw imprints of Germany under Adolf Hitler in the way Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah were using the Citizenship Amendment Act, National Register of Citizens, census evaluation ...
23 April 2026 TelegraphTwenty-eight women polling staff, who travelled 12 hours by bus on Wednesday with EVMs to reach polling stations in East Midnapore's Kolaghat from the collection centre in Tamluk, fell ill from the intense heat.All 28 women, assigned duties in ...
23 April 2026 TelegraphLoreto College can go ahead with its plan to seek autonomy, Calcutta University has said. CU has informed Loreto College that the affiliating university has no objections to the minority college’s decision to apply to the UGC for autonomy.The ...
23 April 2026 TelegraphThree members of a family in Tangra were injured following a clash over parking cars on Tuesday night, police said.Trouble began after Bickram Khatik went to park his car outside his house on Pulin Khatik Road around 9.15pm on ...
23 April 2026 TelegraphTrains arrived one after another. Droves got off the unreserved and general compartments. Platforms hummed with a restless energy. Dust kicked up from thousands of scuffing chappals. Most of them had one bag slung across their shoulder and another ...
23 April 2026 TelegraphPolling teams, accompanied by central forces, have begun visiting homes to collect votes from the elderly (above 85 years) and persons with disabilities.The Election Commission of India has decided that voters over 85 years of age and persons with ...
23 April 2026 TelegraphA division bench of the high court on Wednesday said that a citizen’s freedom can be curtailed only in accordance with law and held that the police observer in Bengal had “erred” in recommending action against around 800 people, ...
23 April 2026 TelegraphThe Election Commission, in a fresh order late on Tuesday, partially rolled back its blanket ban on two-wheelers two days before polling, allowing app-based bike services, food delivery riders and office-goers travelling with pillion passengers.With this, commercial bike services ...
23 April 2026 TelegraphActor and former Trinamool MP from Basirhat, Nusrat Jahan, appeared before the Enforcement Directorate on Wednesday in connection with a probe into an alleged housing fraud in Rajarhat.ED officials had earlier questioned Nusrat for nearly six hours in 2023 ...
23 April 2026 TelegraphNearly 36 hours after liquor sales and services were halted across Calcutta and its neighbouring districts in the name of ensuring “free and fair elections”, the poll panel said it had not ordered any such ban.Late on Tuesday evening, ...
23 April 2026 TelegraphThe Election Commission is using the distribution of voter slips at home to recheck the electoral rolls for missing, shifted or deceased voters.The names of people who have died between the start of the SIR exercise in October last ...
23 April 2026 TelegraphIn Malda’s English Bazar, remove the party flags and this election is easy to miss.On a sweltering afternoon, party offices sit half-empty, their shutters pulled halfway down. A few plastic chairs, a cluster of flags, and a poster curling ...
23 April 2026 TelegraphThe Calcutta High Court on Wednesday stayed an order of the Election Commission's police observer, engaged in the West Bengal assembly elections, who termed several citizens as "troublemakers" and directed action against them.Acting on a PIL that claimed people's ...
23 April 2026 TelegraphCongress workers in Murshidabad believe that Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury is “the Shah Rukh Khan” of Berhampore. A candidate who needs no star campaigner because, they insist, he is the star.Back in the electoral fray of the Assembly after three ...
23 April 2026 TelegraphWhile Bengal observes a 96-hour liquor ban ahead of the first phase of the Assembly elections, police and the excise department late Tuesday night seized a luxury car carrying a large consignment of liquor during a raid in Murshidabad’s ...
23 April 2026 TelegraphWest Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday expressed surprise over the deployment of CRPF armoured vehicles for maintaining law and order during the Assembly polls, alleging that the BJP-led Centre has engaged all wings of the government to ...
23 April 2026 TelegraphFifty-nine seats across four districts — accounting for nearly 39 per cent of the 152 constituencies that will vote in the first phase of the Assembly elections on Thursday — could prove decisive in determining which party gains early ...
23 April 2026 TelegraphCongress leader Rahul Gandhi’s rallies in Kolkata and Serampore, earlier cancelled over lack of police clearance, have been rescheduled for April 25 after authorities granted permission, a party official said on Wednesday."The first rally of Rahul Gandhi will be ...
23 April 2026 TelegraphPolling across West Bengal for the Assembly Election 2026 would be held in two phases: the 1st phase on April 23 across 152 constituencies in 16 districts of the state. While the 2nd phase is scheduled for April 29 ...
23 April 2026 TelegraphThe Election Commission on Wednesday released booth-wise lists of voters cleared by tribunals to vote in the first phase of the West Bengal Assembly elections, allowing eligible citizens whose names were removed during the Special Intensive Revision to cast ...
23 April 2026 TelegraphPrakash, who lives in a nondescript village near Kolkata that is part of the Magrahat West Assembly constituency in South 24 Parganas district, is confident of his party, the BJP, winning the Bengal election, but he makes no bones ...
23 April 2026 TelegraphThe death of 22-year-old Nur Azam at Gunjaria within the Islampur police station limits in North Dinajpur district on Monday night triggered a political controversy.The deceased youth’s family has alleged that he was assaulted, which led to his death.The ...
23 April 2026 TelegraphJitnita Toppo, a visually impaired girl from the Debijhora tea estate of Darjeeling district, has scored an impressive 75.6 per cent in her Class X CBSE examinations by writing her exams using a computer.Born into a humble family, Jitnita ...
23 April 2026 TelegraphThe demand for separate municipalities has emerged as a rare point of convergence between the Trinamool Congress and the BJP in the Matigara–Naxalbari Assembly constituency in the Siliguri subdivision ahead of the Assembly elections.Anandamay Barman, the outgoing BJP MLA ...
23 April 2026 Telegraph