The 2009 Parliamentary election returned the Congress party to power with more seats than even the most optimistic predictions. From 145 seats in 2004, the Congress increased its tally to 206 seats. No doubt, the five-year UPA rule had been characterised by unprecedented growth, but this is too simplistic an explanation since the Congress’s performance varied widely across the states in the elections. For instance, it won just nine out...

Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh has questioned the “huge” funding for social activist Anna Hazare's hunger strike in New Delhi to demand a Lokpal Bill, and asked whether politicians were uncivilised and could not be members of civil society. Speaking at the Press Club here on Saturday, he claimed that Rs.50 lakh was spent on Mr. Hazare's four-day agitation at Jantar Mantar. “When we demanded that it should be brought out...

Violence is back in West Bengal's Purba Medinipur district as the polling date for the 16 Assembly seats here draws close: Communist Party of India (Marxist) cadres are returning, under police protection, to the villages from where they fled in the wake of the Trinamool Congress' stunning successes here in recent elections. In West Bengal's ground zero, Nandigram — located in Purba Medinipur district — the problem is particularly acute. The...

Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee’s son Avijit Mukherjee, who is contesting from Nalhati in Birbhum district as a Congress candidate in the West Bengal Assembly Elections, has assets worth more than Rs 5 crore jointly with his wife. Avijit who filed his nomination on Tuesday stated in his affidavits that he had movable assets worth Rs 58.2 lakh. These include a Maruti 800 car, an army Mahindra jeep and a revolver...

A survey by the West Midnapore administration has found that over two lakh voters, three fourths of them in Maoist-affected areas, are afraid of voting. District officials said the survey of nearly five lakh people to identify “vulnerable voters” had been carried out following instructions from the Election Commission. “As West Midnapore has the largest Maoist-affected area in the state, the commission had asked us to find out about the fear factor...