oppn parties I.N.D.I.A Alliance Not Working In Bengal

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  • Allahabad HC said that the UP Police is acting as law unto themselves as they detained a person unlawfully even before his arrest
  • Kolkata witnesses traffic snarls on the first day of the Durga Puja festival as revellers start pnadal-hopping
  • Neha Bora was subsequently released and Dipke is to appear before a magistrate today at noon
  • Delhi Police detained Cockroach Janta Party founder Abhijeet Dipke, Neha Bora of AISA, student leaders and supporters ahead of a rally in Connaught Place demanding Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar's resignation. The protest followed the detention and jailing of two CJP leaders earlier in the week over demonstrations at Jantar Mantar
  • The Reserve Bank of India is considering further monetary tightening to counter capital outflows and increase the cost of betting against the rupee, according to bankers and analysts cited by Reuters. The measures follow recent rate increases and steps to drain liquidity as pressure on the currency and inflation concerns persist
  • India directed oil marketing companies to stop diverting sugar-based feedstocks for ethanol production in the 2026–27 supply year, according to a new tender issued on Friday. The companies have invited bids for 11 billion litres of ethanol made from alternatives including corn and broken rice, amid concerns about domestic sugar supplies and prices
  • Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said India's trade imbalance with China was growing sharply and attributed the problem partly to restrictions on Indian goods and services entering the Chinese market. China subsequently said it was ready to work with India to address mutual economic and trade concerns; India's trade deficit with China reached $69 billion in the first half of FY2026–27, up 27% year-on-year
  • Indian equity benchmarks extended their recovery on Friday, with the Sensex rising 413.66 points to close at 74,729.27 and the Nifty 50 gaining 148.80 points to settle at 23,146.15. Information technology shares, including Tech Mahindra, Infosys and TCS, helped lift the indices
  • India defeated Zimbabwe by four wickets in the opening women's T20 International in Raipur, taking a 1–0 lead in the three-match series. Deepti Sharma and Niki Prasad combined in an 82-run stand after India's top order collapsed, helping the hosts chase down Zimbabwe's total of 114 for five
  • Indian wrestler Komal won bronze in the women's 59 kg category at the Under-23 World Wrestling Championships in Las Vegas, defeating Kazakhstan's Viktoriia Khusainova 7–2. Fellow Indian Amruta Pujari advanced to the women's 72 kg final after recording two pinfall victories
  • Indian shuttler Jagsher Singh Khangurra secured a bronze medal at the BWF World Junior Badminton Championships in Cairo
  • The Supreme Court of India upheld the Bombay High Court's decision quashing the 2020 write-off of ₹8,415 crore in additional tier-1 bonds issued by Yes Bank (Yes Bank). The court ruled that the bank's administrator lacked the authority to extinguish the bonds under the final reconstruction scheme, strengthening bondholders' claims
  • The Supreme Court issued notices to the Election Commission of India, Delhi Police and opposition leaders, including Rahul Gandhi and Akhilesh Yadav, in separate petitions concerning electoral-roll revision and protests held in Delhi on October 10–12. The court also directed the preservation of CCTV footage linked to allegations of police excesses
  • The Supreme Court ruled that a person converting from Hinduism to Islam cannot automatically claim backward-class reservation benefits in the new religious community solely on the basis of their previous caste status. The judgment upheld the Madras High Court's decision striking down a 2024 Tamil Nadu government order that permitted such certification for specified communities
  • The Election Commission of India ordered a Special Summary Revision of electoral rolls in 14 states and three Union Territories, using January 1, 2027, as the qualifying date for voter eligibility. The draft rolls are scheduled for publication on November 12, claims and objections will be accepted until December 11, and the final rolls are due on January 4, 2027
Delhi HC refuses to ban CJP's Tiranga rally at Central Park in Connaught Place today /////// Police says will control and regulate it /////// NDMC closes the park for the public on Friday and Saturday
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I.N.D.I.A Alliance Not Working In Bengal

By Sunil Garodia
First publised on 2024-01-21 06:08:19

About the Author

Sunil Garodia Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator. Author of Cyber Scams in India, Digital Arrest, The Money Trap and The Human Hack

The tiff between the Congress and the Trinamool Congress (TMC), both members of the opposition I.N.D.I.A alliance, is heating up in Bengal. For the last few days, TMC supremo and Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee has shown her impatience with the Congress as she said that her party was the only one capable of beating the BJP in Bengal. Earlier, the TMC was willing to concede two Lok Sabha seats (Behrampore in Murshidabad and Malda Dakshin in Malda) which the Congress had won in 2019 to the party. But Congress had demanded more seats. The TMC, citing the results of the 2021 assembly elections in which the Congress performed very badly, is not willing to concede any more seats. The TMC has also made it clear that it is not going to hold any discussions over seat sharing with the CPM-led Left Front in the state.

The state unit of the Congress party is divided over who to ally with. While Behrampore MP and the leader of the Congress in the Rajya Sabha, Adhir Ranjan Choundary, who is a staunch critic of Mamata Banerjee, says the party will be better off in coming to a seat-sharing understanding with the Left Front, Malda Dakshin MP Abu Hasem Khan Choudhary favours an alliance with the TMC. The party high command had not made its views public yet, altough the TMChas said it will not wait and watch and will decide on its own if the Congress dithers. Importantly, when TMC said that it will contest on all 42 seats in the state, Adhir Ranjan Choudhary said he 'doesn't care'. It seems that despite being in alliance at the national level, the Congress, the TMC and the Left will not come to an understanding in Bengal in a bid to fiercely guard their individual bastions.

The TMC is holding the results of the 2021 assembly elections as proof of its rising stock and consequently the dwindling stock of all other parties, including the BJP. The TMC was shocked when the BJP won a record 18 Lok Sabha seats in the state in 2019. But it claims it has clawed back and its performance in most of the assembly segments of the 18 seats which the BJP won in 2019 shows that it will wrest back a majority of them. Although people vote differently in assembly and Lok Sabha elections, the TMC claim of dwindling support for the BJP in the state has some validity as there is little buzz around the party this time.

But TMCs reluctance to concede more seats to the Congress and ignore the Left would mean that in most seats in Bengal, despite the I.N.D.I.A alliance, there will be three-cornered contests if the Congress-Left come to an understanding. Otherwise, there might well be four-cornered contests. In such a scenario, although the TMC considers that it is dominant, electoral arithmetic might help the BJP in winning some seats it might not have won if there were one-to-one contests. Or is it that the shrewd Mamata Banerjee knows that in one- to one contests with the BJP, the opposition votes, especially those of Left voters, might not transfer to the TMC and might go to the BJP creating problems for her party and that is why she is seeking to divide opposition votes by having multi-cornered contests?

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