Private 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 TelegraphHundreds of river erosion victims across four Assembly constituencies in Malda district are struggling after their names were allegedly removed from the electoral rolls, stripping them of their voting rights.The plight of Malda’s erosion victims highlights a critical gap ...
23 April 2026 TelegraphA bitter blame game between the BJP and Trinamool Congress candidates marked the final day of campaigning in the Siliguri Assembly constituency on Tuesday, just hours before the campaign period officially ended.Outgoing BJP MLA and current candidate Shankar Ghosh ...
23 April 2026 TelegraphUnion home minister Amit Shah on Tuesday sought to stoke the sentiments of the Gorkhas to galvanise support in the three Assembly constituencies of the Darjeeling hills and in the foothills by assuring that if the BJP grabbed power ...
23 April 2026 TelegraphThe Supreme Court on Wednesday sharply criticised West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for allegedly obstructing a raid conducted by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in Kolkata. "This is not a dispute between the Centre and the state. A ...
23 April 2026 TelegraphWest Bengal on Wednesday breached the 42-degree Celsius mark, with the India Meteorological Department (IMD) forecasting heatwave conditions over major parts of northwest, central and eastern India in the next four to five days.The IMD on Wednesday warned of ...
23 April 2026 TelegraphThe Trinamool on Wednesday accused the BJP nominee from Shyampukur constituency in north Calcutta of collecting data on voters on the pretext of distributing forms for Yuvashakti Bharosa card, the BJP’s promise for monthly dole to Bengal’s youth if ...
23 April 2026 TelegraphActor and former TMC MP Nusrat Jahan appeared before the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in Kolkata on Wednesday in connection with its ongoing probe into an alleged housing project fraud linked to Rajarhat, officials said. The actor, who had earlier ...
23 April 2026 TelegraphAs concerns grow over alleged large-scale deletions from electoral rolls in Bengal, a cross-faith gathering in the city on Tuesday turned to prayer, calling for the restoration of voting rights and peaceful elections.The response should not be violence, but ...
23 April 2026 TelegraphA seemingly harmless gift card on a parent’s phone may not be as innocent as it appears — it could be a trap set by cybercriminals, warns a schoolgirl in a video message.“Cyber criminals look for just one mistake ...
23 April 2026 TelegraphMany aspiring schoolteachers are struggling to secure jobs despite being recommended, following complaints of “discrepancies” in the vacancy list prepared by the education department.A state secondary education board official said they have received complaints that when candidates selected for ...
23 April 2026 TelegraphThe Election Commission has laid down specific requirements for setting up polling stations inside housing complexes, including a room large enough to function as a polling booth, space to accommodate security personnel and polling officials for at least a ...
23 April 2026 TelegraphCalcutta University has asked affiliated colleges to hold all undergraduate classes online from April 22 to May 5 due to the elections. The university’s inspector of colleges, Diptendu Chatterjee, on Tuesday sent a circular to all the colleges, asking ...
23 April 2026 TelegraphA fire at Anandalok Hospital in Salt Lake on Tuesday morning forced authorities to evacuate all patients and suspend operations for the day. The fire started inside the Cath Lab.An employee of the hospital said some people noticed smoke ...
23 April 2026 TelegraphA division bench of the high court on Tuesday ruled that government college teachers must serve as presiding officers in the Assembly elections, because “every citizen has to work in the national interest and no one can overlook that”.The ...
23 April 2026 TelegraphSchools have decided to call off classes next week or shift to online lessons in view of the elections.Buses have been requisitioned for election duty, and a large number of students depend on school buses for their daily commute.The ...
23 April 2026 TelegraphA 68-year-old security guard at a residential building in New Town is running from one government office to another, travelling for hours in an effort to reclaim his family’s voting rights.The names of Biswanath Dhali, from Srirampur village under ...
23 April 2026 TelegraphRakesh Singh, the BJP candidate from Kolkata Port constituency, allegedly instigated an attack on police during a political clash in Ekbalpore on Monday evening.A video purportedly shows Singh threatening to kill the officer-in-charge of the local Ekbalpore police station, ...
23 April 2026 TelegraphA closed bar does not merely mean a halt in alcohol sales.It signals a sharp fall in the number of people eating out. It means an uncertain future for bartenders, mixologists and servers. It means fewer rides for cab ...
23 April 2026 TelegraphIt’s a hot April afternoon. A battered Bolero is speeding towards Binpur.The 64-year-old widow in the front passenger seat of the non-AC car gazes at a passing, poorly attended Trinamool Congress procession. She looks upset.“Did you see the number ...
22 April 2026 TelegraphSuresh Chandra Mahato, 31, braves a tormenting sun and walks hurriedly towards the market through his small patch of land after plucking sponge gourd before it starts to rot.A portion of his harvest has already gone to waste as ...
22 April 2026 TelegraphAfter liquor and bikes, the Election Commission has turned its attention to Bengal’s tourist places. The Chief Electoral Officer of West Bengal has issued a directive calling tourists and non-residents to exit the state’s popular coastal destinations in Purba ...
22 April 2026 TelegraphFor a section of Bengal’s first-time voters, this Assembly election is not just about choosing a government but about deciding whether to stay or leave.Across constituencies, young voters aged 18 to 21 speak with a sense of doubt that ...
22 April 2026 TelegraphIn the quiet hamlets of Sitalkuchi, in West Bengal's Cooch Behar district, the air usually carries the scent of damp earth and ripening paddy. But as the 2026 Assembly elections in West Bengal draw near, a different atmosphere has ...
22 April 2026 TelegraphUnion Home Minister Amit Shah on Tuesday promised that the BJP would resolve the decades-old Gorkha issue within six months if the BJP comes to power in West Bengal.He said no party other than the BJP could find a ...
22 April 2026 TelegraphAt least six people were killed and some were injured in two road accidents on NH12 in North Dinajpur district on Monday morning.A source said the first accident took place in the Mahadebpur area of Raiganj. A stone-laden dumper ...
22 April 2026 TelegraphCongress national president Mallikarjun Kharge on Monday accused the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi of misleading the country over the women’s reservation bill, claiming that it attempted to use the legislation as a pretext to enforce delimitation.Kharge was ...
22 April 2026 TelegraphThe Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a PIL which sought declarations of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose as a “National Son” and the Indian National Army founded by him as one that had secured the country’s independence.A bench of Chief ...
22 April 2026 TelegraphA fresh political development involving the Kamtapur Liberation Organisation (KLO) has drawn attention in the region’s electoral landscape, barely days before north Bengal votes on April 23.Krishna Das, Trinamool’s Jalpaiguri candidate, on Saturday sought support from self-styled KLO chief ...
22 April 2026 TelegraphParivartan (change) is most likely to take place across the Darjeeling hills on May 4, when the results of the Bengal Assembly elections will be declared.This is because three political parties that are drawing the largest crowds in their ...
22 April 2026 TelegraphThe state forest department has initiated extensive measures to ensure peaceful polling at booths in forest and forest-fringe areas of north Bengal ahead of the Assembly elections, with special focus on preventing human-animal conflict.Sources in the department said nearly ...
22 April 2026 TelegraphGolam Sarwar, an Independent candidate of the Goalpokhar Assembly constituency in North Dinajpur, has been campaigning using flex boards and banners that display not only his own image and election symbol but also the photograph of a Congress candidate ...
22 April 2026 TelegraphChief minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday expressed fear that many Trinamool Congress workers could face arrests ahead of the two-phase Bengal Assembly elections scheduled for April 23 and 29.Her party on Monday moved Calcutta High Court seeking immediate judicial ...
22 April 2026 Telegraph