
Bypoll election results: AAP wins 2 seats, Trinamool & BJP 1 each; Congress wins in Kerala
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New Delhi: In the assembly by-polls held for five seats across four states, AAP won two while the BJP Congress and Trinamool Congress won one seat each.In Gujarat, the ruling BJP retained Kadi in Mehsana district, while AAP retained Visavadar in Junagarh. AAP also retained the Ludhiana West seat in Punjab. Trinamool Congress retained the Kaliganj seat while Congress snatched the Nilambur seat from the CPM in Kerala.AAP candidate Sanjeev Arora won the Ludhiana West assembly seat by a margin of 10,637 votes, an improvement over the previous margin of 7,512 votes in 2022. The seat fell vacant after the death of AAP MLA Gurpreet Gogi. Congress candidate Bharat Bhushan Ashu got 24,542 votes while BJP candidate Jiwan Gupta got 20,323 votes.In Gujarat, BJP's Rajendra Chavda defeated Congress candidate Ramesh Chavda by a margin of 38,904 votes in Kadi. In Visavadar, AAP's Gopal Italia bagged 75,906 votes against BJP's Kirit Patel's 58,325 votes, while Congress's Nitin Ranpariya got 5,491 votes. With this, BJP now has 162 members in the 182-seat assembly while Congress has 12, AAP five and there are three independents.In West Bengal, the ruling Trinamool Congress retained the Kaliganj seat with party candidate Alifa Ahemed winning the seat by a margin of 50,049 votes. BJP candidate Ashish Ghosh stood second with 52,710 votes while Congress candidate Kabil Uddin Shaikh got 28,348 votes.The Congress wrested the Nilambur Assembly seat in Kerala, marking a morale booster for the United Democratic Front (UDF) against the ruling CPM-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) in the run-up to next year's assembly elections. The Congress candidate Aryadan Shoukath defeated CPM's M Swaraj by 11,077 votes.

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The Hindu
a few seconds ago
- The Hindu
Why is northeast on edge about Assam evictions?
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The eviction drives, allegedly targeted at Bengali Muslims, resumed in June 2025, coinciding with charges of corruption against the BJP-led government, one of them involving the purchase and redistribution of Gir cows for an agricultural project at Gorukhuti, from where migrant Muslims were evicted. What are the roots of the problem? Evicting encroachers from forestlands, wetlands, and government revenue lands is not a new phenomenon in Assam. However, the operation has been high on optics as the BJP and its sub-nationalist regional allies have accused the 15-year rule by Congress of having paved the ground for encroachment by the 'Bangladeshi', 'Miya', or 'illegal infiltrators' — pejoratives for Muslims with roots in present-day Bangladesh — for votes. 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This aggression is also reflected in the rhetoric of the Chief Minister and other BJP leaders, who refer to the drive as a long-term exercise to save Assam from 'land jihad'. Before the drive was launched this year, the Chief Minister said 15,288.52 bighas of satra (Vaishnav monastery) lands remain illegally occupied by people of doubtful citizenship across 29 districts. He also referred to the Union Environment Ministry's report to the National Green Tribunal that 3,620.9 square kilometres of forest area in Assam were under encroachment as of March 2024. The Chief Minister vowed to continue the eviction drive until Assam is encroachment-free in 'at least 10 years', while clarifying that tribal people living in forest areas from before 2005 and covered by the Forest Rights Act would not be touched. 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They issued orders to the authorities in areas bordering Assam to increase vigilance, prevent the evicted people from coming in, and make the issuance of the inner-line permit, a temporary travel document, stricter. How are border disputes linked to eviction? Although opposition political parties in Assam see the eviction drive against Bengali-speaking Muslims as a part of the BJP's agenda of polarisation ahead of the 2026 Assembly polls, encroachment is at the core of the State's boundary disputes with Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Mizoram, and Nagaland. These States were carved out of Assam between 1963 and 1972. In March 2025, the Assam Assembly was told that the four States have been occupying almost 83,000 hectares of land belonging to the State. These States have, off and on, driven migrant Muslims out to Assam, a State they accuse of having patronised 'illegal immigrants' and made them settle along the borders as a ploy to claim disputed lands. More than 350 people have died due to the inter-State disputes, which Assam has partially resolved with Arunachal Pradesh and Meghalaya. On July 30, the Gauhati High Court directed these five States to constitute a high-level committee to facilitate a coordinated action to clear illegal settlements from forestlands.


Time of India
28 minutes ago
- Time of India
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Time of India
28 minutes ago
- Time of India
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