May 2026

GUWAHATI: The scent of success wore off. Badruddin Ajmal’s AIUDF, once the principal voice of Muslim minorities in Assam, has crashed from 16 seats in the assembly to just two, signalling a sharp erosion of its political relevance as BJP’s wider sweep and Congress’ consolidation redraw the map.The 70-year-old businessman-politician, whose family-run fragrance house, Ajmal…

GUWAHATI: A student’s ambition, spoken lightly in the corridors of Cotton College. A chief ministership imagined in youth. Himanta Biswa Sarma turned that early hint into a political fact in 2021. Five years on, the Assam CM has delivered his most emphatic proof yet — a decisive 2026 mandate that pushes BJP well past the…

West Bengal outcome may realign New Delhi-Kolkata-Dhaka tiesKOLKATA: On a day Trinamool was dismantled, the hammer blow for the party landed at the fag end – with Mamata Banerjee losing her bastion of Bhabanipur to BJP’s Suvendu Adhikari by 15,105 votes.For 15 years, it had been her home turf, a constituency she shaped and returned…

KOLKATA: BJP has delivered a sweeping blow to TMC across eight districts of Bengal — the scale of the victory underlining not just anti-incumbency, but also the saffron party’s growing ability to convert social coalitions, local grievances and organisational strength into a decisive electoral machine.The most dramatic story came from East Midnapore, where BJP completed…