For decades, Swapan Dasgupta made a career of diagnosing India’s political ailments. As a columnist, editor, author and public intellectual, the erudite and scintillating Dasgupta dissected challenged orthodoxies and defended the intellectual traditions of the Indian Right. However, following his new appointment as the new Finance Minister of a West Bengal in economic doldrums, he perhaps faces the most demanding assignment of his career. His supporters however are confident

Raghav Chadha, Tejaswi Surya, Nishikant Dubey, Praful Patel CAN be included New Delhi: A significant reshuffle of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Council of Ministers is widely expected after June 16. Several prominent and senior faces could make way for a younger, more energetic, and politically active generation of leaders. There is considerable speculation in political circles that influential ministers such as Dharmendra Pradhan and Bhupender Yadav may no longer remain p

Congress takes on the government with a new zeal Mumbai Youth Congress workers organise 'Yuva Akrosh Morcha' in Dadar, Mumbai, on Tuesday to protest against the NEET and CBSE examination scams. Pic: Bhushan Koyande Mumbai: For over a decade since it was eased out of power, the Maharashtra Congress faced a series of electoral debacles, a demoralised organisation and receding visibility – the last which mattered most. That perception is apparently changing as the state and ci

As the BJP expands its political dominance, Indian Muslims need to rethink old electoral assumptions in engaging with the BJP. It is fascinating to read Arvind Singh’s ‘India’s Rogue Historians: How They Fought Hindus at Ayodhya & Lost’ (Redux Publications) in the context of the Madhya Pradesh High Court’s recent Bhojshala judgment. Singh, in his 830-page tome, explains how India’s Muslims, persuaded by the cohort of Marxist historians, squandered every opportunity to reconci

It seems that the Congress party has developed a remarkable talent that whenever it is handed a rare political victory, it treats it not as a mandate to govern but as an opportunity for collective nervous collapse. Having been reduced to a shrinking archipelago amid the BJP’s continental expansion, the party finally managed to secure Kerala this time. And yet, instead of focusing on issues, it has immediately begun heckling its own Chief Minister V. D. Satheesan over his surn

Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav offers 'prasad' to people on the occasion of Bada Mangal in Lucknow on Tuesday. Pic: PTI New Delhi: In Uttar Pradesh politics, "saffron" has evolved from being merely a color to a potent political symbol encompassing power, culture, security, and social psychology. Once considered the distinctive identity of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), this color has now seeped into the lexicon of opposition politics as well. With the 2027 assembly e

The Congress’ crisis is not merely electoral decline, but the slow exhaustion of imagination, organisation and ideological clarity. For a long time, my understanding of opposition was deeply personal. It began at the dining table. I had just entered college. We had moved to a new house. New friends, new influences, and conversations that stretched late into the evening. At home, the dining table became a miniature parliament. Strong Hindu voices surrounded me in conversations

The Bharatiya Janata Party’s emphatic return to power in Assam marks more than a regional electoral triumph. With Himanta Biswa Sarma sworn in for a second consecutive term after the NDA’s sweeping victory of 102 seats in the 126-member Assembly, the BJP has entrenched itself as the dominant political force across India’s eastern frontier. For the first time in Assam’s history, a non-Congress chief minister has secured two consecutive terms. That is a tectonic shift. For deca

While democracy needs a credible opposition, it is not the BJP’s responsibility to create one. Elections in India since 2014 have increasingly generated an engaging debate- the “lack” of a political opposition to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Barring a few setbacks, especially the 2024 general elections, most electoral contests since 2014 have recorded a steady and spectacular march of the BJP. The post-West Bengal iteration of this debate has an even graver existentiali

The shocking murder of BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari’s closest aide Chandranath Rath on a public road in Madhyamgram, immediately aftert he BJP scored a historic landslide in the West Bengal Assmebly election by toppling Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress, is not merely another political killing in the state. It is the logical culmination of a culture of gangsterism that has flourished under Mamata Banerjee’s rule for over a decade and a half. Bengal has long witnessed violen

Assam and West Bengal signalled a broader political shift: traditional regional loyalties no longer guarantee voter allegiance. The political landscape of eastern India has undergone a profound transformation over the past decade, culminating in significant electoral victories for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in states like Assam and, to a more complex extent, its rise as a dominant challenger in West Bengal. These developments are not isolated electoral outcomes but refl

New Delhi: The recent electoral outcomes in West Bengal are more than mere numbers, but they carry a clear message that Bengali Hindus are now openly voicing their demands for security, dignity, and a future of young and next generation. For the past fifty years, and especially over the last fifteen, the Hindu community in the state has often been treated as second-class citizens. Their lands have been encroached upon, their homes and families threatened, and their social, cu

The 2026 Assembly poll results have shown that India’s voters are shifting from familiarity to aspiration by rewarding those leaders and parties who promise a credible path to the future. Something significant has shifted in Indian politics, and we are still trying to explain it using the comfort of old ideas. For decades, we believed elections in India were won on the strength of grassroots connection. The party that knew the people best, that walked their streets, spoke the

BJP candidate for Bhabanipur and Nandigram constituencies Suvendu Adhikari, who defeated West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in the prestigious Bhabanipur seat, shows a certificate of election on Monday. Pic: PTI Mumbai: The Bengali word “Poriborton” translates to profound change. While it was initially fiercely utilized as the central battle cry for the assembly elections in West Bengal, the final tally from all five state elections reveals that the spirit of the word

The keenly-contested state elections in four states and a union territory witnessed mandates that have taken a tectonic turn in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Kerala. The voters here have delivered verdicts that have completely upended entrenched narratives and redrawn the Indian political map with unusual force. The most dramatic upheaval unfolded in West Bengal, where the Bharatiya Janata Party pulled off what once seemed improbable: dislodging Mamata Banerjee and her All Indi

Exit polls, like monsoon forecasts, are best treated with scepticism. India’s recent electoral history is littered with confident projections that dissolved on counting day. Yet even allowing for their fallibility, the latest round of projections across four states and one Union Territory offers some clear indications of churn in the east, cautious continuity in the south and consolidation in the north-east. The most keenly contested and eagerly watched state is West Bengal,

Mumbai: The upcoming Legislative Council elections for 10 crucial seats are rapidly transforming into a volatile political battleground. What initially appeared to pass off as a routine democratic process like Rajya Sabha elections earlier this year is now increasingly shaping up as a fierce, silent competition for dominance between the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena. Simultaneously, this power struggle is casting a long shadow over the opposition

For months, speculation of a chill between the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and Prime Minister Narendra Modi has animated India’s commentariat. This was particularly pronounced in the aftermath of the 2024 Lok Sabha election where the BJP, despite emerging as the single-largest party, had failed to form the government on its own. This fuelled talk of a ‘cold war’ between the ideological fountainhead and the political executive. It is against this backdrop that RSS general secr

Once a powerhouse, the state now faces debt, deindustrialisation and a steady flight of capital and labour For a state that once stood as one of India’s foremost economic engines, West Bengal, for the better part since Independence, has been caught in a prolonged cycle of stagnation, fiscal stress and outward migration. The promise of political change has come and gone across regimes, from the Communist Party of India (Marxist) to the All India Trinamool Congress, but the und