Bengal Assembly Elections 2026: The Income Tax department has raided the election office and residence of Debasish Kumar, a candidate from the Rashbehari Assembly seat and a senior Trinamool Congress leader. IT Department also conducted similar searches on the premises of the associates of DMK’s Coimbatore South candidate V. Senthilbalaji in Karur. TMC leaders have called the raids as politically motivated and to hurt the confidence of party workers and image of the party.
In another development, West Bengal Assembly LoP Suvendu Adhikari has alleged that TMC is issuing fake press identification cards to its party workers so they could gain easy access to polling stations and manipulate the overall election process.
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Bengal Assembly Elections 2026-Commissioning Of EVMs and VVPATs Starts
The Election Commission of India has started the commissioning of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) and voter verifiable paper audit trail (VVPATs) for Tamil Nadu constituencies and the first phase in West Bengal. It was remarked by the EC that the commissioning exercise would be followed by a mock poll of 1000 votes in 5 percent of the EVMs.
Voting in the state of West Bengal would start in two phases on April 23 and April 29 while voting in the state of Tamil Nadu would happen on April 23. Results for all five states (Assam, West Bengal, Kerala, Puducherry and Tamil Nadu) would be announced on May 4.
Mamata Vs People Contest
Devendra Fadnavis, the Maharashtra Chief Minister, has described the West Bengal Assembly elections 2026 as a contest between the people of West Bengal and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. Fadnavis also remarked that he and the party are fully hopeful of the BJP’s win in the state and realize the dream of “Shonar Bangla.”
It was alleged by Fadnavis that West Bengal was once among the top 5 economic states of the country but has now fallen in deep debt because of poor Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) to debt ratios.
